Tbilisi and the 2024 Elections
An authoritarian turn by the Georgian government could help Putin and Trump
Last Tuesday I watched from just outside the police barriers a few blocks from Columbia University as the NYPD prepared to forcibly remove protesters from Hamilton Hall. While I was observing the events at Columbia, Georgian friends were sending me photos of the massive rallies on the streets of Tbilisi. Naturally I sent them photographs of what was going on at Columbia. For a professor with long ties to Columbia University who has spent much of his life studying Georgian politics it was quite a confluence of events.
For several weeks now, tens of thousands of Georgians have been protesting against the government’s attempt to pass a law that would force any non-governmental organization (NGO) receiving foreign assistance to identify themselves as a foreign agent. Audits and other forms of harassment would be sure to follow if the bill, known as the Foreign Agents Law, were to pass.
The bill is modeled on similar laws in countries in the region that support Russia and share Moscow’s authoritarian governance. A little more than a year ago Georgia tried to pass almost the exact same law, but backed down in the face of massive protests. This time it looks like they will go through with it.
The protests have been met with violent repression from the government, threats and assaults on activists and a ranting vitriol filled speech from Bidzina Ivanishvili. Ivanishvili, despite holding no government office is widely known to be the most powerful man in Georgia.
The protests in Georgia have not been about just the proposed Foreign Agents Law, as the Georgian people have also been demanding that their government move their country towards the European Union and democracy, while expressing anger and frustration at their government which has increasingly demonstrated a lean towards Moscow, despite promising the people a European and democratic future.
An important context for all of this in Georgia, that is relevant even to people with no knowledge and little concern for a small country thousands of miles from New York, Washington or San Francisco, is that the Georgian people will go to the polls in October of this year, only a few weeks before we have our own elections here in the United States. While this may simply be a coincidence of timing, it is not one that is likely to be lost on Vladimir Putin.
President Biden has said that the front lines of the global battle between authoritarianism and democracy are in Ukraine. He has also suggested that the war between Israel and Hamas is another front line of that struggle. The President is slightly off in his analysis. In 2024, the primary front lines in the global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism will be Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and the other swing states that will determine the outcome of the American election and the state of democracy in the US and globally.
It is essential to understand that a victory for Trump is a victory for Putin is a victory for authoritarianism globally-and that's why events in Georgia these past few weeks are so important for all of us.
The American election is going to be very close, and with slightly fewer than six months remaining until the voting concludes, there is still much that can happen. Events in Georgia in the runup to, and aftermath of, the election in that country are a part of the equation to which we must some attention.
The Georgian government led by a party known as the Georgian Dream (GD) has pushed away so many voters in recent weeks ago that whereas even a few months ago they had a real shot at winning the October parliamentary election, it now seems extremely unlikely that they will win without resorting to large scale fraud. It is also apparent that if the GD commits that fraud and claims victory, given what we have seen just in the last few weeks, the Georgian people are unlikely to accept is quietly. Georgia has a history of peaceful demonstrations to oust undemocratic regimes, and that could certainly repeat itself this October.
Imagine a scenario in October where the GD has tried to commit election fraud to remain in power and the Georgian people are going to the streets to protest the fraud. The Georgian government, desperately afraid of losing power accedes to a Russian intervention. That intervention could take the form of Moscow sending in a few troops or tanks across Russian-Georgian border, acts of cyber warfare against opposition forces in Georgia or something else.
It won't take much more than that for Georgia to look like another global hotspot that has become unstable, feeding the Trump narrative that Joe Biden has brought chaos to the US and the world. The Republican Party will point at Ukraine, Gaza, Georgia, and probably college campuses, as places where Biden's policies have failed and chaos has followed. The irony of Donald Trump, an agent of chaos of historic note accusing Biden of creating instability is extraordinary, but it could be effective.
In what is expected to be a very close election developments like that could make a difference. Because Putin wants Trump back in power it is likely that he will do whatever he can to destabilize Georgia after the election, even if that takes the form of encouraging the GD to respond with greater force than we have seen in the last few weeks to post-election demonstrations.
In the days since the police pulled protesters out of Hamilton Hall, an eerie calm has descended on Columbia University, not least because of the large police presence and also the reality of final exams and the end of the semester. However, if the war in Gaza is still going on in the fall, it is almost certain that the new school year will be characterized by the same kinds of protest that we saw towards the end of this semester, and not just at Columbia University.
The perception of chaos from the university campuses to countries that most American voters cannot find on a map will feed the Republican narrative that it is time for a strongman like Trump. Putin understands that defeating Biden means defeating Ukraine on the battlefield, destabilizing Georgia while moving that country further away from the west and ultimately destabilizing the US. Those are huge victories for Putin that are almost a given if Trump gets elected.
The US may have limited tools available to influence the GD led Georgian government, but doing whatever is possible now to help the Georgian people reclaim their country is both the right thing to do and good politics for the Biden administration.
Defeat the "Axis of Authoritarianism"** arcing from Marje--a-Lago to Moscow. Moscow Marjorie and the Kumquat Kompromat perform as Pocket Puppets in Putin's Petrushka Performance. [**as labeled by a long-time democracy practitioner].
GD leaned so far into Moscow that they accidentally stumbled into EU candidacy.