US raises alarm over Georgia’s elections

The U.S. and European allies are raising alarm over Georgia’s elections, where the Russian-friendly ruling party Georgian Dream (GD) claimed victory over opposition parties that have refused to recognize the results, accused the Kremlin of meddling and called for mass protests.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, joined by some of his counterparts, has held back on recognizing GD’s victory and called for investigations into the elections.

The final tally on Oct. 26 gave GD nearly 54 percent of the vote — a comfortable mandate for control of the Parliament that could insulate the party from entering into EU-promoted negotiations with the opposition, which happened in disputed election results in 2020.

Experts following Georgia's democratic backsliding are worried that international attention will fade and efforts to address fraud will be ignored.

“We cannot find ourselves in the same situation as in 2020 when the Georgian opposition and the Georgian people were saying that the elections were rigged, but at the end of the day, our international partners were saying that ‘maybe there were some cases of elections being fraudulent, but overall, they were fair and free,' because this is not what happened this time,” said Elene Kintsurashvili, program coordinator for the German Marshall Fund who is based in the organization’s Warsaw office.

“There is a worry that we might end up where Belarus is and I can assure you that this is not what Georgia people want.”

Georgian Dream was first elected in 2012 on a platform promoting integration into the European Union. But the party, under the leadership of billionaire backer Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, has nearly severed all ties with the U.S. and Europe while passing Russian-inspired legislation that suppresses civil society and rolls back rights for the LGBTQ community.

The party’s preelection campaign was defined by months of fearmongering, including that any vote against GD would drag Georgia into Russia’s war against Ukraine. Russian forces occupy 20 percent of Georgia’s territory.

Georgia President Salome Zourabichvili, who holds nominal powers and operates independently of the GD-controlled Parliament, described the election results as a “Russian special operation” in the aftermath of the vote and thanked Blinken for his statement. Russia denied any interference.

International election observers have roundly criticized the vote as failing to meet standards of a free and fair election, describing a widespread, well-orchestrated scheme to undermine and manipulate the vote that began well before election day.

At the same time, there’s been criticism of the opposition for not providing a united alternative to Georgian Dream. They’ve also been criticized for not campaigning in rural areas that are GD strongholds. This could make it more difficult to show the vote was stolen.

Local election observers have provided detailed assessments of people casting multiple votes; voter secrecy violations; and physical violence against observers, journalists, opposition party members and civilians. Observers said that 111 polling stations, out of a total of 1,131 stations, had significant, documented violations.

But with GD controlling the Central Election Commission (CEC) and nearly all government institutions, there’s real doubt that investigations will lead anywhere.

“Trust in the independence and impartiality of the CEC is abysmally low,” the International Republican Institute wrote in its election observation assessment.

“I hope no one in the State Department or the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi is holding their breath for a full investigation, that just is not going to happen,” said David Kramer, executive director of the George W. Bush Institute.

“Unless there is pressure applied from the outside, Georgian Dream is just going to roll ahead with these results and assume that they're getting a free pass from the international community.”

Kramer called for Blinken to come out with a stronger statement than what was issued, saying it is important for U.S. officials to go to the podium and make clear they are seriously watching.

He is also critical of the Biden administration for holding back sanctions on Ivanishvili and his family members.

“Sanctions, for sure, are the tool that we have available, and they are also a way of avoiding any inadvertent or implied punishment of the rest of the population of the country. And so if we had done that, I don't think we would be where we are now,” he said.

Kramer pointed to President George W. Bush’s administration, when Secretary of State Colin Powell took to the podium to call out fraud in Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election. In what became known as the Orange Revolution, protesters succeeded in ousting the pro-Moscow president who claimed victory.

“It gave critical oxygen to people insisting on a free and fair election, not a stolen election,” he said.

Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, expressed doubt that the U.S. could have much influence in the short-term, given GD’s near-total control of the state, the fractious opposition, and competing priorities of the U.S. election on Nov. 5, as well as the foreign policy focus on the Middle East.

“In terms of what the U.S. can do, not much I hate to say. I think practically it’s not business as usual with Georgia, a country that has gone from being a beacon of hope in a very volatile region has now entered Moscow’s slip stream, if not orbit,” he said.

A long-term approach should be considered to engage with half the population that does support closer ties with the U.S. and Europe, Coffey said.

“Russia is looking for easy doors to push open, and we need to give them absolute hell inside Ukraine, so they're fully consumed by that,“ he said. “And when they're weakened, or when they're militarily defeated, they're so consumed by their domestic problems that they can't really deal with their former empire.”