By Ashish Singh
Clashes broke out between protesters and police in Georgia’s capital for the fourth consecutive night on Sunday. Protests have started there in protest against the government’s decision to suspend talks on joining the European Union. Tensions have been growing for months between the Georgian Dream party, which won the recent elections, and opponents, who accuse the party of pursuing increasingly dictatorial, anti-Western and pro-Russian policies. The situation has changed since Thursday’s announcement that the government will suspend EU talks for four years.
On this issue, Yevgeny Ivanov, a Moscow based expert on this matter, says:
“The opposition, including supporters of former President Mikheil Saakashvili (in prison) and activists from EU- and US-funded NGOs, refuses to recognise the results of the parliamentary elections. They are afraid of losing funding because the Georgian Dream party passed a law restricting the activities of organisations receiving money from abroad. The country’s President Salome Zurabishvili supported the protesters. However, her term of office has expired. She refuses to leave her post because she does not consider the new parliament legitimate. The new president should be elected by the parliament, as Georgia is a parliamentary republic. The Georgian Dream Party plans to elect as president a candidate with whom they do not have such contradictions as with Zurabishvili.”
Ivanov continues: “In terms of geopolitics, Western countries are mobilising protesters in Georgia, creating another flashpoint in Russia’s neighborhood. During the first days after the elections, the Georgian opposition was confused and inactive, but now the protesters are acting in a scenario similar to that of other colour revolutions. This indicates that the Georgian protest is supported by Western countries, which are also planning to impose sanctions against the new Georgian government, which has postponed the issue of European integration until 2028.”
(Ashish Singh is a social and political scientist.)
