Georgia protests: What’s behind them and what’s next?

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have clashed with riot police in Georgia over the past five nights in protests against the governing Georgian Dream party’s decision to suspend talks aimed at joining the European Union until 2028. 

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, chairman of the populist Dream Party, announced the decision after the European Parliament rejected the results of Georgia’s October 26 parliamentary elections. He accused the European Parliament and “some European leaders” of “blackmail”.

Why are people protesting in the country of 3.7 million people in the South Caucasus? And what could happen next?

Who is protesting in Georgia and why?

Protests erupted on Thursday after Kobakhidze announced that Georgia would suspend talks on accession to the EU for four years.

This announcement came just hours after the European Parliament adopted a nonbinding resolution rejecting Georgia’s parliamentary election results due to “significant irregularities”. The resolution called for new elections to be held within a year under international supervision and called for sanctions on Georgian leaders, including Kobakhidze.

On Sunday, Kobakhidze told reporters parliamentary elections would not be reheld, further intensifying protests. But it is not just voters who have taken to the streets.

“This movement now extends beyond public demonstrations,” Tinatin Akhvlediani, a research fellow in the EU Foreign Policy Unit at the Brussels-based think tank Centre for European Policy Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“Civil servants, including some from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, members of the diplomatic corps and hundreds within the education system have joined the resistance. This signals that Georgians are united in their determination not to abandon their European choice.”

Georgia applied to be part of the EU in March 2022 and became a candidate for EU membership in December 2023. The goal of joining the EU has been enshrined in Georgia’s Constitution since 2017.

According to a poll by the Washington-based nongovernmental organisation National Democratic Institute, which is funded by Western governments and US government organisations, almost 80 percent of people in Georgia said they want their country to become an EU member.

This is not the first time that public discontent with the Dream party has resulted in protests this year.

In May, parliament passed the Dream Party’s “foreign agents bill” with 84 votes among the 150 MPs.

The law requires nongovernmental and media organisations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from outside Georgia to register as bodies “pursuing the interests of a foreign power”. This sparked rioting in Tbilisi with critics arguing that the law would curb media freedom and jeopardise Georgia’s bid to join the EU. President Salome Zourabichvili, who is independent and not affiliated with any political party, called the law an “exact duplicate” of a bill passed in Russia in an interview with CNN.

Many agreed with her. Akhvlediani said: “That legislation, seen as Kremlin-inspired, was widely perceived as an attack on civil society, independent media and free speech. It exemplifies the ruling Georgian Dream party’s pattern of democratic backsliding, state capture, rigging elections and attempts to undermine Georgia’s European aspirations.”

Salome Zourabichvili, the independent president of Georgia, has been a vocal critic of Georgian Dream’s policies and legislation [File: Foto Olimpik/NurPhoto via Getty Images]

How have Georgia’s authorities responded to the protests?

Kobakhidze

The prime minister has been critical, describing the demonstrations as violent and alleging that they are a product of foreign interference.

“The protests in Tbilisi are not peaceful,” he said during a news conference on Monday.

“We may be dealing with foreign ‘trainers’ organising these violent groups, but this is a matter of investigation,” he added. He also claimed some of the protesters are foreign nationals.

He further claimed that the opposition is trying to create a situation similar to Ukraine’s pro-Europe demonstrations in 2014 in Maidan square. That uprising was followed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The largest opposition group in Georgia is the Coalition for Change, which comprises pro-Western liberal parties.

However, at Monday’s news conference, Kobakhidze reaffirmed the government’s commitment to eventually joining the EU.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, centre, leaves a voting station after casting his vote in parliamentary elections on October 26, 2024, in Tbilisi [Diego Fedele/Getty Images]

Georgian riot police

In footage of the protests, demonstrators can be seen waving large EU flags while facing off against a squad of riot police. The police have used tear gas and water cannon in attempts to disperse the protesters. Videos also show protesters hitting back at the riot police with fireworks.

Prominent opposition leader Zurab Japaridze, a member of the opposition party Girchi (“More Freedom”), was among those arrested.

The Georgia chapter of the Germany-based anticorruption watchdog Transparency International issued a news release saying the protesters detained on Monday were physically assaulted by law enforcement officers.

“Officers were allegedly overheard coordinating to break detainees’ arms or legs, with instructions from their superiors to target the liver and head,” the news release said.

“Riot police reportedly stripped detainees of their shoes, forcing many to walk barefoot to medical facilities. Mobile phones were confiscated, and detainees were coerced into unlocking them.”

Zourabichvili

Zourabichvili, the pro-EU president, was elected for a six-year term in 2018. Her presidency is due to end this month. She has reacted to the government’s introduction of the “foreign agents” law and its crackdown on protesters by refusing to step down.

Zourabichvili is the last president to be elected in Georgia by popular vote.

In 2017, Georgia approved constitutional changes abolishing the direct election of the president. The next president will be elected for a five-year term by a 300-seat electoral college, which includes the members of parliament and is dominated by the Dream party.

The vote for the new president is set to take place on December 14. “On December 29, she will have to leave her residence and surrender this building to a legitimately elected president,” Kobakhidze said on Sunday.

Georgian Dream has picked far-right former football international Mikheil Kavelashvili as its candidate for the largely ceremonial post.

But the current president has refused to step down over doubts about the legitimacy of the October elections. “There is no legitimate parliament. Therefore, an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president,” she said in a video on Saturday.

How have EU, Western countries reacted?

The EU released a statement on Sunday saying the union “regrets Kobakhidze’s statement on Georgian Dream’s decision not to pursue the opening of EU accession negotiations and rejecting EU financial support until 2028”.

It added that the decision marks a shift from previous Georgian governments’ enthusiasm for joining the EU. The EU statement read: “The Georgian authorities’ course of actions and democratic backsliding led to the de facto halt of the accession process already in June this year.”

After condemning police violence against pro-Europe protesters, the statement concluded: “The EU stands with the Georgian people and their choice for a European future. The door to the EU remains open and the return of Georgia to the European values and the EU accession path is in the hands of the Georgian leadership.”

The US Department of State also released a statement on Saturday saying: “By suspending Georgia’s EU accession process, Georgian Dream has rejected the opportunity for closer ties with Europe and made Georgia more vulnerable to the Kremlin.”

The statement added: “We reiterate our call to the Georgian government to return to its Euro-Atlantic path, transparently investigate all parliamentary election irregularities, and repeal anti-democratic laws that limit freedoms of assembly and expression.” This referred to laws including the foreign agents bill and an anti-LGBTQ bill that was passed in September.

How has Russia reacted?

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Russia was not interfering in Georgian politics. “Everything that is happening in Georgia is its internal business,” he said.

Peskov, however, drew parallels between the current protests in Georgia and the Maidan protests in Ukraine.

He said Georgia is “moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path into the dark abyss”, adding that this would end “very badly”.

What will happen next?

“The future is uncertain, but the protests clearly underscore mounting public dissatisfaction with the government’s blunt deviation from Georgia’s European course,” Akhvlediani said.

She added that the government’s crackdown on protests risks “further fuelling resistance and expanding the scale of demonstrations” and the international community’s response to the crackdown on the protests will be “critical”.

“Targeted sanctions against individuals responsible for election rigging and democratic backsliding, as seen in actions taken by the Baltic states, should be considered,” she said. “Such measures would demonstrate solidarity with the Georgian people and pressure the government to respect the will of its citizens.

“The EU, the US and the other Western allies of the country should also continue supporting civil society and free media, which represent the backbone of Georgian democracy.”