CHAIR OF DISCORD

Georgia is suffering from mass protests again. Apparently tied to internal political confrontation between the authorities and opposition, they also affect the relations between Tbilisi and Moscow, and even more broadly, the problem of the geopolitical orientation of this South Caucasian country.

Battles in Tbilisi

Direct cause of another escalation of tension in Georgia was the events that took place at the 26th General Session of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO) held in Tbilisi. Founded in 1993, IAO includes parliamentarians from 22 countries, including Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, the Baltic countries, Cyprus and other states where Orthodox Christianity has traditionally existed. Previous sessions of the assembly were held in Athens, Rome, Vienna and, by and large, there were no prerequisites for a similar IAO forum in Tbilisi to turn into something out of the ordinary. However, everything went bad due to a single but random protocol mistake, in which, by the way, many in Georgia saw a previously prepared, purposeful provocation.

The session was held in the building of the Georgian parliament, and the President of the IAO, State Duma deputy Sergei Gavrilov was seated in the chair of speaker. This caused serious dissatisfaction among Georgian parliamentarians, who cited the immediately spread information about Gavrilov's participation in the hostilities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But even this did not blow up the situation, especially since a little later the Russian parliamentarian denied the accuracy of such information. For a spark capable of kindling a flame of indignation of the Georgian public, it was enough that Gavrilov, of course, supported the official recognition by Russia of the independence of Georgian autonomies. Thus, the sitting of the Russian deputy in the chair of the head of the highest legislative body of Georgia was regarded as a step of disrespect towards the country, the host of the IAO session.

Subsequent events, the operations to remove Gavrilov to a safer place and the start of protests took a more internal political tone. Georgian oppositionists began not only to declare that the coalition government of “Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia” “sold the Homeland”, but also to put forward specific political demands, first of all about holding early elections. But the main thing, riots and clashes of protesters with law enforcement agencies, began in full compliance with the logic of an uncompromising struggle for power. According to Georgian media reports, opposition tried to rush into parliament, in response the police used tear gas and rubber bullets against them. Two of the protesters had their eyes knocked out. In general, 240 people were injured, including 80 police officers. Over 300 demonstrators were detained.

Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze accused the ruling United National Movement party of violating the rule of law and “aggressively trying to destabilise the situation in the country”. However, realizing the danger of growing protests, the authorities immediately made such a concession as the resignation of the head of parliament Irakli Kobakhidze, who was accused by the demonstrators of organizing the visit of the Russian parliamentarian to Tbilisi. By the way, Kobakhidze promptly interrupted his visit to Azerbaijan and, returning to Georgia, was immediately out of work under pressure from the protesting masses.

However, Kobakhidze’s resignation in no way resolved the situation, especially since several days later another representative of the ruling party, Archil Talakvadze, was elected as the speaker. Oppositionists then demanded the release of all individuals detained during the unrest and the resignation of the Minister of Internal Affairs Georgy Gakharia, who was condemned by the protesters for excessive use of force. At the same time, in addition to the holding of early elections, the demand to abandon the mixed majority-proportional electoral system as the main condition for dismantling the power of the leader of the Georgian Dream party, the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, began to sound.

Noting the demands for early elections and the resignation of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the authorities, nevertheless, decided to release almost all detainees. Remarkably, Ivanishvili himself declared that the 2020 parliamentary elections will be held in Georgia under a proportional system, and in the conditions of zero electoral barrier. Premier Bakhtadze, calling this decision unprecedented, because “more parties will have an opportunity to get into parliament,” did not rule out even the creation of a coalition government following the upcoming elections next year.

The opposition, though suspicious in the decision on the zero barrier, threatened the passage of small pro-Russian groups to the parliament, nevertheless regarded the authorities' consent to amending the electoral legislation as their important victory. In particular, the deputy from the party “European Georgia - movement for freedom” Irma Nadirashvili stressed that the approval of the proportional system is “a step forward, because the“ Georgian Dream ”can no longer hope for bags of money, meaning majoritarian people, who are moving from one government to another and sign any decision."

Thus, the Georgian opposition managed to use the ill-fated "Gavrilov's chair", at least, to create conditions for weakening power for the 2020 parliamentary elections. If we consider that the presidential elections in Georgia last autumn showed a significant increase in the popularity of the United National Movement, i.e. supporters of former president Mikhail Saakashvili, then the plan of the leading opposition forces for success during the parliamentary race may seem quite justified. Another thing is the next round of intensification of Russian-Georgian relations, caused by the scandal at the Tbilisi session of the IAO, which, apparently, regardless of the internal Georgian political situation, will not undergo any serious "anti-crisis" changes in the foreseeable future.

Tourists or enemies?

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, reacting to the clashes in Tbilisi, accused Russia of provoking Russia, “the enemy and occupier”. She believes that Moscow is interested in splitting Georgian society, but those who encourage internal opposition in the country support Russian politics.

The Kremlin’s response to the events in Georgia was immediate. Russian President Vladimir Putin temporarily banned, starting from July 8, 2019, any passenger flights of Russian airlines from Russia to Georgia. At the same time, Putin instructed the government to take measures to ensure the return of Russian citizens temporarily staying in Georgia to Russia, and also recommended that tour operators and travel agents not sell vouchers to that country for the duration of the ban. Then the Russian Ministry of Transport announced the decision to ban Georgian air carriers from flying to Russia also starting from July 8.

According to experts, the decisions of Moscow can cause serious damage to the tourism industry and the entire economy of Georgia, since the Russians are in the first place among tourists visiting Georgia. It is not surprising that proposals from the Georgian side began to sound about alternative options for the arrival of Russians in Georgia - through Minsk, Baku, Yerevan, Istanbul, etc. Realizing the unacceptability of Putin’s measures for the interests of Georgian economy, President Zurabishvili also preferred to make a more moderate statement: “Tourists should continue to come, because they love Georgia, and politicians should solve the problems underlying the incident”.

Moscow, however, regarded the ongoing events in Georgia as a surge of anti-Russian hysteria and described the events exclusively in geopolitical tones. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Georgia has become an example of the consequences of Western geopolitical engineering, “Western curators are ready to shut their eyes to the excesses of ultranationalists, to Russophobia, just to break all ties of the Georgian people with our country, rewrite our common history.”

However, it is impossible to ignore one very remarkable circumstance. Anti-Russian statements made by top Georgian authorities during the protest actions in Tbilisi have become, perhaps, the most acute statements since the political force led by Bidzina Ivanishvili came to power. Therefore, Moscow’s recent anti-Georgian demarches can be viewed as an indicator of its outrage at the position of Georgian Dream, which has practically ceased to differ in its anti-Russian rhetoric from Saakashvili’s supporters. Nevertheless, it’s impossible not to notice electoral touches in the intensification of the “Russophobia” under Ivanishvili observed in recent days, during the actual leadership of which some progress in the dialogue between Moscow and Tbilisi has been reached, including an increase in the Russian tourist flow to Georgia. Realizing the noticeably shaken domestic political positions, the Georgian Dream government apparently decided to restore the previous level of electoral support by playing on the frankly anti-Russian rhetorical field, favoured by Saakashvili’s “nationals”.

However, all these assumptions do not rule out the severity of geopolitical confrontation around Georgia, one of the indicative examples of which is the history with the Russian Orthodox communist and Member of Parliament Gavrilov. If there are opinions about the involvement of Moscow in the growing intra-Georgian split, the conclusions about the role of Washington in intensifying the struggle for power in Georgia sound no less convincing. This means the preparations by the United States to bring a radically pro-Western government to the power in Georgia given the tightening of the anti-Russian and anti-Iranian policy of the Trump administration. Thus, even the likelihood of the return to power in Georgia of Mikhail Saakashvili or, at least, of the political force actually controlled by him and his closest associates, is not excluded.

Anyway, the time remaining before the 2020 parliamentary elections (unless, of course, the government of the Georgian Dream gives up to the opposition in the matter of holding early popular elections) promises to be extremely important not only in the context of possible changes in the Georgian government, but also determining the country's place in the arena of an increasingly acute geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the West.