Islam Times - Pro-Western Parties’ Loss in Election Shows Georgians Learned Lessons from Ukraine

Pro-Western Parties’ Loss in Election Shows Georgians Learned Lessons from Ukraine

Islam Times - With the start of the war in Ukraine that has left massive impacts on the world's geopolitical issues, the Caucasus region has begun to have significance in the "grand game" of the powers more than ever. One of the important countries in this strategic region is Georgia that has become a point of Russian-American competition due to the challenging elections over the past two decades.

The new round of the parliamentary election was held on October 26, and the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party led by Bidzina Ivanishvili won 54 percent of the votes, followed by the pro-Western opposition party that won 37.58 percent. The ruling Georgian Dream party won 90 percent of the votes in rural areas, but it made poorer results in the capital Tbilisi and other big countries.

With this result, the Georgian Dream party won 91 seats out of 150 seats in the parliament to obtain the necessary quorum to form the government, but this figure is still less than the absolute majority needed to approve constitutional amendments to make fundamental changes in policies against opponents.

One of the highlights of this round of elections was the heavy shadow of the war in Ukraine and Russia's conflict with the Western camp, so that the warning about the recurrence of the war in Georgia was the main slogan of the Georgian Dream party. This party warned the people that if the pro-Western parties win, confrontation with Russia will bring Georgia into war with Russia and repeat Ukrainian scenario in their country.

Also, since the election results did not appeal to the pro-Western parties, immediately after the announcement of the results, they claimed fraud. Salome Zoubrabichvili, the pro-Western president of Georgia, accused Russia of interfering and rigging the country's elections and described it as "Russian special operation". Tina Bokuchava, leader of the opposition National United Movement party and speaker of the parliament, said the election had been "hijacked" and called for public demonstrations.

At the request of the opposition leaders, thousands of Georgians took to the streets to reject the results and demand re-elections.

A group of prominent Georgian election observers said earlier that they had uncovered evidence of a complex, large-scale fraud scheme that swayed the results in favor of the ruling party.

Although after the internal protests a recount of votes was carried out in some polling areas, this time there was no significant change in the previously announced official results, and the ruling party can still form the government as it holds majority. However, the opposition parties have said that they will not enter the new parliament, which they called "illegal", and called for new elections.

The European Union and the US, which consider the results of the Georgian elections to be a big loss to them, have called the results illegal and have emphasized on conducting a full investigation of the results.

While the EU had warned before the elections that this would be a crucial test for the fledgling democracy of EU candidate Tbilisi, US President Joe Biden also called Georgia's election a setback" of democracy in the country, indicating the importance of Georgia's political transformation of geopolitical competition between Moscow and Washington in the Caucasus region.

Shift in Georgian foreign policy

Undoubtedly, the victory of the pro-Russian parties in Georgia will have an impact on foreign policy. Although the opposition is still insisting on their demands for re-election, it does not seem that they can make much change in the new political equation. Therefore, the gaining of power of pro-Russian parties causes the leaders of Tbilisi to seek some changes in their foreign policy strategy. Given the critical conditions of the international system, the new leaders of Tbilisi will try to adopt a correct and calculated policy in order to avoid the consequences of the crises.

With regard to the confrontation of the West and Russia in Ukraine, the Georgian Dream party considers itself a shield against conflict with Moscow. While the opposition parties paint their victory as the only way to save the democracy in the country and perpetuate hope of accession to the EU, the Georgian Dream sought to separate ways of Tbilisi from the Western camp, openly calling for boosting Georgian-Russian relations.

Georgian significance in Russian-Western competition

It has been years that Caucasus has turned into a strategic confrontation front of the West and Russia. The geographical proximity of this region to the borders of Russia and the prioritized security and geopolitical interests of the Russians in preventing NATO from reaching its borders and being caught in the security fence of the West have stirred Moscow's sensitivities about the developments in the Caucasus.

In recent years, especially after the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the government of Yerevan, which has seen Russia's military support against Baku's threats as insufficient has tended towards the expansion of political and military relations with the West, and this has added importance to Georgia as the other side of the developments in the Caucasus.

Russian leaders intend to bring the former Soviet republics back into their orbit and block NATO's path to the Caucasus and Central Asia. Due to the fact that Georgia is the gateway of the Caucasus to Europe and has an important strategic position, the Russians have opened a special account on this country.

Georgia was one of the countries that, despite Western pressure, did not condemn the Russian attack on Ukraine and refused to join the sanctions against Moscow. After the Ukrainian war, the Caucasus has become an important region for global trade routes and a space for geopolitical competition and energy transportation center.

This region also plays a key role in economic and transportation networks between Asia and Europe. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline transports Caspian Sea oil to Europe, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline does the same for natural gas. Therefore, the transit role for both projects can help this country to become a trade hub between Europe and Asia.

In this situation that Russia is denied access to European routes due to Western sanctions, it is looking at transit routes in the south to circumvent the sanctions pressure with the help of the Caucasus and Central Asian republics, and Georgia can help Moscow in this path.

On the other hand, the victory of the pro-Russians in Georgia shows the impressive ability of the Kremlin to undo the process of decades of efforts to integrate this country into the EU.

For years, Georgia has been considered one of the most Westernized countries emerging from the ashes of the former Soviet Union. Although polls showed that many Georgians hated Russia for its support of the two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the results of the recent elections showed that this view among Georgians has faded to some extent.

Victory of the Georgian Dream party marks a big loss to the West since it enables Russia to strengthen its economic and soft power against the Westerners.

The US and its allies, which are trying to re-implement the Iron Curtain policy against Russia, desperately need the help of the former Soviet republics. In the past two years, by riding the Karabakh crisis and the tension between Armenia and Russia, NATO has been trying to get closer to Yerevan and hence closer to Russian borders, and to this end, they have made promises of Armenia membership in the NATO and in the EU commissions.

This time, the Westerners tried to realize this scenario in Georgia as well, in order to gradually wrest the Caucasus from the hands of the Russians. Because the presence of NATO in the Caucasus is a strong pressure lever against Russia, and in this way, they can pressure Moscow to withdraw part of its forces from Ukraine. Therefore, with the results of the recent elections in Georgia, the West's attempt to enter the Caucasus will face a fundamental challenge.

The Georgian Dream party has proper understanding of the regional and international realities and does not want Tbilisi to become a point of conflict between East and West like Ukraine. The war in Ukraine, which the West played the main role in its ignition, has had nothing but destruction for this country and this provides a lesson for the Georgians. Once in 2008, Georgia was deceived by the West's promises and paid a heavy price and it does not want to repeat that bitter experience.

According to some experts, with the victory of the pro-Russians in Tbilisi, the new administration in the US, which has lost to the traditional rival, would take punitive measures against Georgia in order soften the tone of Tbilisi regarding the West.

With Western objection to the election results and incitement of popular protests against the ruling party, it seems that the US plans to plot another velvet revolution like the 2003 Rose Revolution. But this time Moscow will not allow Washington to destabilize the borders of the former Soviet Union as before.