Behind the mass protests in Georgia
Tato Khundadze and Robert H. Wade argue that the West must tread lightly as it watches Georgia wrestle with its identity and future.
On May 28th the Georgian parliament approved the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence (also known informally as the foreign agents bill), even after months of many thousands of protestors gathering in the capital Tbilisi to demand that the bill be withdrawn and after warnings from the EU that Georgia’s candidacy would be in question if it is approved. The Georgian Dream government ordered the police to crack down on the protesters, resulting in many ending up in hospital and almost two hundred being arrested between mid-April and mid-May (GYLA, 2024). When parliament approved the law on May 14th, the president of the republic vetoed it. But her veto was overridden by the Georgian Dream majority in parliament on May 28th.
The law is aimed at improving transparency by requiring media companies and civil society organizations to register with the state as groups “carrying the interests of a foreign power” if their funding from foreign sources exceeds 20% of the total. On the face of it, a law that requires knowledge of who is funding media and civil society organizations to be in the public domain is a support to democracy, yet the protestors – as well as the government – say they are acting to support democracy.
The opposition parties and the protesters in the streets refer to the law as “the Russian law”, implying it is inspired by a Russian law that similarly regulates foreign funding. They see it as the Georgian Dream party and its billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili (who made his money in Russia) taking another step away from their deeply desired path to EU and NATO membership. Virtually all the big NGOs active in fields linked to economics and politics receive a large part of their funding and advice from sources in the west, and champion Georgia’s fast move towards the west and away from Russia. Protesters worry that the ruling party will use the law to suppress dissenting voices even more than they are already suppressed.
On the other hand, the Georgian Dream government says that it remains committed to joining the EU and NATO, eventually. It emphasises that under its leadership the constitution was amended to include integration to the EU and NATO as objectives for future governments; and further emphasises that during the current government’s tenure it signed an Association Agreement with the EU and secured visa-free access to Europe. It says it wants the transparency law in place only to limit foreign intervention in the domestic politics of sovereign Georgia. Government leaders have expressed alarm that the foreign ministers of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Iceland, took part in the Tbilisi protests and made anti-government declarations.
Fuelling the protests against the law is a pervasive sense of crisis in the population at large. Recent polls suggest that around 70% of respondents believe Georgia is in a severe economic crisis (ISSA, 2024). In 2023 the official unemployment rate was 16%. A broader measure of “labour underutilization” counted almost one third of the labour force as underutilized. Outward migration continues to be high. Today’s population of around 3.7 million is one third less than the 1989 high point before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, the Georgian Dream government remains firmly committed to a “free market” view of how to achieve prosperity. One recent minister of the economy liked to declare that “the best industrial policy is none at all”. Another Minister of the Economy suggested converting the Ministry into the Ministry for Tourism, so important is the role of tourism and so marginalized the view that the government should be encouraging any upgrading of the production structure
In foreign policy the government is playing a difficult balancing act. On one hand, the population overwhelmingly wants to join the EU and NATO; recent polling suggests that 73% believe that joining the EU will contribute to Georgia’s prosperity and 71% support Georgia’s integration into NATO (Babunashvil, 2023). On the other hand, the government is constrained by the complex geopolitics of the country’s location: Russia immediately to the north, Azerbaijan and China to the east, Turkey and Armenia to the south, Ukraine on the western side of the Black Sea with Europe beyond. The government cannot make an enemy of Russia -- not only because of the long border with Russia but also because two of Georgia’s provinces, accounting for about 20% of the country’s area, were invaded by Russia in 2008 and continue to be under de facto Russian control, with Russian troops only 40 kilometres from Tbilisi – a point largely ignored in western commentary.
The war in Ukraine has stoked fears in the government and across the population of “Ukrainization” – if the west cannot properly protect Ukraine, which is much larger and closer to Europe than Georgia, the west is even less likely to offer assistance to Georgia in the event of further Russian aggression.
No surprise that the government is building relationships with other regional actors, notably Turkey and China. It signed a free trade agreement with China in 2017 and as of May 2024 Georgians can travel visa-free to China. The day after the parliament approved the transparency law for the second time (overriding the president’s veto), the government announced that a Chinese consortium will upgrade Anaklia port on the Black Sea, as a pole on the Middle Corridor route from China to Europe bypassing Russia (Walter 2022).
Elections for a new government are to be held in October of 2024. It is important that western states avoid inflaming the security dilemmas faced by the government. Having another Kiev Maidan (Heuvel & Carden, 2024) conflagration in Tbilisi - with western actors, including even foreign ministers, engaged on the ground in encouraging mobilization against the government - is not in the interests of Europe or the United States. It could provide Russia with a pretext for another invasion. It would worsen the already severe economic crisis.
Tato Khundadze is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the New School, New York City; Robert H. Wade is professor of global political economy at the London School of Economics. Address for correspondence: Khundadze, (khunt758@newschool.edu)
Photo by Rudy Kirchner
References
Babunashvili, G. (2023). Public perception of foreign threats in Georgia. Tbilisi: CRRC-Georgia.
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Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association. (2024, May 16). GYLA. Retrieved from https://www.gyla.ge/en/post/rusuli-kanonis-dasacavad-khelisufleba-mshvidobiani-aqciis-monatsileebis-tsinaaghmdeg-dzaladobas-agrdzelebs#sthash.56uU8XX4.dpbs
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Walter, W. (2022). Challenges and opportunities of the Middle Corridor. German Economic Team. Retrieved from https://www.german-economic-team.com/en/newsletter/challenges-and-opportunities-of-the-middle-corridor/
