The uprising of Georgians after the parliamentary elections on 26 October 2024, represents the struggle for a proper constitutional order and democratic standards. Although it is similar to EuroMaidan in Ukraine in that it represents a struggle against a pro-Russian and authoritarian government, the comparison with Maidan does not help the cause as ‘the Maidan scenario’ is being instrumentalized by Russian propaganda. Russian disinformation and the conspiracies of the Georgian Dream regime aim to portray the current Georgian protests as an attempt to conduct a violent coup, presumably orchestrated by the West. In addition, the Georgian protests have their own logic of development, as well as demands and methods that are unique to the situation and which may be ignored if we simply perceive the protests as another ‘Maidan moment’.
Georgia has entered a political crisis after the parliamentary elections on 26 October, 2024. The Central Election Commission announced that the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party won the majority of seats with 53% of votes. However, the President of Georgia – Salome Zourabichvili, the opposition parties and the majority of civil society organizations, including the national observers of the elections, demonstrated that the elections were rigged, they were neither free nor fair and subsequently declared that the results were illegitimate. The Georgian Dream party also failed to get recognition from Georgia’s international partners – the EU and the US. These results sparked mass protests in Tbilisi and other big towns in Georgia.
The second wave of protests, which have been more widespread and diverse, ,began after 28 November, when Irakli Kobakhidze, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed government of Georgia announced that Georgian Dream would halt Georgia’s integration into the EU until 2028. Since then, there have been incessant mass protests in Tbilisi and other big cities in Georgia. The main demand of protesters is to hold new parliamentary elections under a neutral electoral administration. The protests have been accompanied by repressions – hundreds of citizens, including students, journalists, doctors and actors were arrested, beaten and tortured by the police, 47 of whom are still in prison. The arrests are widely viewed as unlawful and illegitimate, thus, the second demand of the ongoing protests is the release of the political hostages.
Some sources in the Western media have compared these events in Georgia to the famous Maidan in Ukraine. They see the similarities, as the Georgian protests as well as the EuroMaidan in Ukraine, are against authoritarianism and the pro-Russian government. Another similarity is that of the GD government suspending the process of Euro-integration of Georgia, just as the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, refused to sign an association agreement with the EU in 2013. On the other hand, the Georgian Dream regime also used this comparison for its own propaganda, with Kobakhidze declaring that ‘the Western-instigated Maidan’ was failing in Georgia. In addition, ‘Anti-Maidan’ groups in support of Georgian Dream have sprung up on Facebook. Although these groups are relatively small and driven by the Georgian Dream propagandists and trolls.
What is Really Happening in Georgia?
According to the polls, about 80% of Georgian citizens express support for Euro-integration of Georgia. In recent years, Tbilisi has been the center of the pro-European and pro-democracy mass demonstrations. However, the current protests are unprecedented in their scope – citizens in more than 40 cities, towns and villages joined the demonstrations at various times. Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi, Zugdidi, Telavi and several other places have been the centers of non-stop protests since 28 November. Various professional groups and class segments have joined the protests and expressed solidarity in their own way. For example, there were hundreds of marches conducted by different professional groups such as IT workers, artists, lawyers, teachers, students, healthcare workers and delivery workers. Another major event was the three-hour general strike while thousands of workers walked out of their jobs to demand free and fair elections.
There are indeed similarities between Maidan and the ongoing protests in Georgia. Both oppose a pro-Russian government and support democracy and Euro-integration of their countries. However, I argue that comparing the Georgian protests to Maidan is counterproductive. First, the comparison reflects and helps to advance Russian disinformation. Second, the Georgian protests have their own logic of development, demands and methods, which are different from Maidan and it would be wrong to reduce this case to a generalized ‘Maidan moment.’
The narrative of the GD which compares the protests with Maidan is not valid but is based on disinformation. Although these comparisons that we see in some of the Western media may be well-intentioned, I believe that they still help to advance the imperialist interests of Russia and reflect the Russian-style propaganda and conspiracies of the Georgian Dream.
It is noteworthy that the Maidan movement and the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2014 which was a culmination of it, have long been vilified in the narratives of Russian propaganda. These narratives manipulate the information to serve the imperialist interests of Russia and portray the events of Maidan as a violent coup planned and orchestrated from abroad and as a source of chaos and war. As we will see below, the narrative and conspiracies of the GD government perpetuate precisely these propagandistic narratives.
According to the narrative supported by the Georgian Dream, ‘foreign agents’ of the West are behind the Georgian protests that want to turn Georgia into ‘a second front’ for Russia while it is invading Ukraine. Following this conspiracy, Georgian Dream tries to portray the opposition and the protesting citizens as ‘radicals’ and warmongers who attack ‘the peace’ of their voters. In this way Georgian Dream keeps up its pre-election strategy, in the scope of which it actively manipulated with ‘the peace agenda’, threatening the citizens with war with Russia, in case they lose power. The conspiracy represents a comical reduction of political processes to the struggles of ‘foreign agents’ of various sides and tries to sell submission to the Russian empire as ‘peace’. The conspiracy gives birth to the Georgian Dream narratives that are openly anti-human rights and anti-democratic and continues with more manipulation when questioned on these grounds.
My argument is that the Georgian protests are a reaction to the backsliding of democracy. The current protests are the culmination of the political crisis, which was triggered by Georgian Dream’s adoption of the ‘Foreign Agents Law’ (also known as ‘the Russian Law’) in the spring of 2024 and later, by the adoption of a package of anti-LGBT laws before the elections.
These laws are a sign of Georgia’s authoritarian turn; although the ruling party was still trying to maintain its image of being committed to Georgia’s Euro-integration. The action of Georgian Dream seems to mirror Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary. Even though Hungary has been a member of the EU since 2004, Viktor Orban’s government has long been known for its authoritarian politics. So, the GD government seems to align itself with ‘the European authoritarianism.’ However, the rigged elections and Kobakhidze’s announcement regarding the Georgia-EU relations entirely shattered the seemingly pro-European face of the party and set the stage for nationwide pro-democracy and pro-European protests. The pro-democracy character of the protests is illustrated by the main demand – free and fair elections. Within the framework of liberal democracy, the government and society operate as a whole to sustain the constitutional order and the state institutions. However, this is not the case in Georgia where the pro-Russian self-proclaimed government of the GD violates the constitutional order and advocates submission to the greed of the empire ‘in the name of peace’. The popular protest, on the other hand, demands to uphold the constitution and proposes new elections as a non-violent institutional way to resolve the crisis.
The current protests in Georgia continue the history of Georgians’ unique and autonomous organizing and struggle for democracy. The claims that the protests are violent and ‘orchestrated by the West’ are not based on any real evidence, but rather reflect Russian disinformation and attempt to use the manipulation of information to sustain themselves. Despite there being some general similarities between Maidan and the Georgian protests, framing the latter as another ‘Maidan moment’ still presents the simplified and distorted picture of events. It is as of yet impossible to speak of the concrete outcomes of this ongoing process in Georgia; however, it is obvious that the propagandistic assessments of it as ‘violent’, ‘criminal’ and ‘orchestrated by foreign powers’ distort the picture of political processes in Georgia for the international public.