Profit, Paranoia, Protest
Georgia’s Nightmare
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In Georgia, all signs point to a storm. The increasingly authoritarian government and a broad social protest movement stand irreconcilably opposed to one other. The country appears to be trapped in a confrontational political culture. The ruling party is producing Soviet-style images of the enemy and wants to grind down the last bastions of independent control. This development was not inevitable. Apparently, the oligarch behind the ruling party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, succumbed to panic because he saw his assets invested abroad at risk due to Western sanctions against Russia. He wants to turn Georgia into an authoritarian fortress, seemingly equidistant from Russia and the EU. The situation is extremely prone to violence. The elections in the autumn of 2024 offer a small chance to turn the confrontation on the streets back into a competition at the polls.
(Osteuropa 5/2024, pp. 5–13)