Violence Erupts in Georgia After Government Suspends EU Accession Bid

The fires leapt high. Putrid black clouds roiling inward above ferocious orange and red flames licking at dumpsters, scooters, restaurant chairs and park benches dragged across the road.

Shouts of “Russian slaves” hurled at the lines of riot police some twenty feet back from the barricades, the freezing November air tanged by a foul and drifting amalgam of tear gas, burning plastic and pepper spray. 

Last night’s demonstrations unfolded with a fury Tbilisi has not seen since the riots of March 2023, when tens of thousands took to the streets in protest against the government’s abortive first attempt to pass a Kremlin-inspired law on ‘foreign influence’ targeting pro-democracy actors and critical voices.

Grimly etched into the hearts and minds of those out on Rustaveli Avenue into the early hours of this morning, gasmask-clad and wrapped in Georgian and EU flags, was everything that has happened in the year and a half since. 

War in Ukraine has entirely upended Georgia’s political landscape. Amid the ongoing conflict, the ruling Georgian Dream party, under the shadow leadership of its Russian-made founder, billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, has torpedoed relations with the US and the EU, embarking on a violent campaign of authoritarian reforms critics say are designed to inch it back toward Moscow’s orbit. 

Georgian Dream’s triumph at October’s parliamentary polls prompted an outpouring of congratulations from other autocratic regimes — Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Kremlin propagandists, Azerbaijan’s despot and Venezuela’s dictator — equalled only by deep scepticism from long-standing international partners over the breadth and scale of alleged electoral abuses whereby the government appeared to have secured its victory. 

In the weeks since, damning evidence has emerged of what opposition leaders and civil society watchdogs describe as a concerted, coordinated and multifaceted rigging scheme.

Recent reports have outlined countless alleged instances of vote buying, multiple voting and breaches of voter secrecy, along with a systemic abuse of public resources for party-political purposes, and a mass campaign of coercion, intimidation and violence against opposition representatives and supporters. 

Prior to last night, protests were relatively scattered, organised by a variety of different pro-democracy actors and sparsely attended by demoralised and exhausted voters, many of whom feel disillusioned by the political opposition’s perceived failures on the campaign and in the election’s aftermath. 

With perhaps only a thousand protesters gathered outside in the drizzling rain, Georgian Dream assembled for the first session of a new parliament on Monday in breach of the country’s constitution, given an ongoing legal challenge to the election results from Georgia’s pro-Western president, Salome Zurabishvili, who was conspicuously absent from the hall.

Opposition MPs, who have uniformly rejected their parliamentary mandates, similarly boycotted the session. 

The ruling party has since announced a new candidate for the presidency, anti-Western firebrand Mikheil Kavelashvili, who on 14 December is slated to be the first appointed under new laws not by popular vote, but an electoral college decried by many as entirely comprised of staunch Georgian Dream loyalists.

By Thursday afternoon, officials had convened again at parliament to approve their new cabinet, with Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze using the session to renew his government’s previous threats of outlawing Georgia’s various political opposition groups.

“Unfortunately, these people are still called the opposition,” he told the half-deserted hall. “Today, their seats are empty, but it must be said that even if they were sitting here, these seats would be just as vacant as they are now.”

Across the continent, members of the European Parliament had similarly assembled to vote on a non-binding resolution concerning the election.

The motion passed with an overwhelming majority, marking an explicit rejection of Georgian Dream’s legitimacy as the new government and calling for the vote to be re-staged within a year.

Kobakhidze, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili and party founder Ivanishvili were singled out as targets for personal sanctions.

Kobakhidze later announced at a press conference that EU accession negotiations, already effectively on hold since Georgian Dream passed its controversial ‘foreign agents’ law amid mass protests in May, would not be “on the agenda during the current parliament”. and that the country would be suspending its constitutionally-enshrined aspirations for EU membership “until the end of 2028”. 

Some 80% of the Georgian public have shown repeated support for one day joining the bloc.

Further fuel was added to the crisis by Vladimir Putin. Speaking at a press conference in the Kazakh capital of Astana, the Russian President said: “When the events began in Georgia, I was, frankly, surprised to observe it all. We have no relationship with them, with the leadership of Georgia, but I was simply impressed by their courage and character in defending their point of view.”

Less than an hour after Kobakhidze’s announcement, a crowd gathered outside Georgian Dream’s headquarters on Tbilisi’s Gorgasali Street, vocal but nevertheless small enough to bely the open calls for revolution beginning to circulate on social media.

Party members were visible on the balcony, stealing furtive glances at the numbers below as reports of similar mobilisations started to trickle in from Georgia’s other cities – Kutaisi and Batumi, later Zugdidi, Gori and Telavi. 

By 7pm, Zurabishvili had convened an emergency meeting of Georgia’s diplomatic corps, civil society organisations joining in the calls to assemble as the crowds moved from the ruling party HQ to the parliamentary building on Tbilisi’s central thoroughfare of Rustaveli Avenue which was later blocked by a throng some tens of thousands strong.

A small contingent assembled on the front steps, banging out an ominous and steady rhythm on the welded barricades under swirling graphics of a molotov cocktail, a clenched fist, a furious-faced emoji projected on the stones above. 

Leaving her unscheduled summit, Zurabishvili addressed the nation, decrying Georgian Dream’s decision to abort the EU accession process as a “constitutional coup” and urging civil servants, ambassadors, regular police forces and the military to protect those protesting an “illegitimate government” that has declared “war against its own people, its own past, its future, and the future of our society and country.”

Tensions simmered. Intermittent clashes breaking out between demonstrators and riot police holding firm against the crowds pushing up into the side-streets of Chichinadze and April 9th flanking the parliamentary building.

Zurabishvili passed through, addressing security personnel directly. “Won’t you talk to your president?” she told the armoured lines. “Do you serve Russia or Georgia? To whom are you sworn?”

A warning soon issued by the Interior Ministry, that a “legal response” would follow any “illegal action” at the demonstrations.

Soon after 1am the first gas canisters were seen, trailing green-grey arcs of smoke over the masses on Chichinadze and arcing just as swiftly back from the opposing side as efforts grew to tear down the barriers at the unmanned front gate.

Civil society watchdogs issued counter-statements calling on police not to obey unlawful orders, to exercise restraint as the street lights went on and off overhead.

Then the pepper spray, renewed volleys of gas and charges from armoured officers beating demonstrators back, pushing forward the line then held as the dispersal sirens began to sound. Chemical-laced water blaring down from a cannon turreted atop armoured cars.

The dispersal began in earnest not an hour and a half later. Robocops, as armoured police officers are known among Georgia’s activists, rushing in under the spray and through the acrid clouds to force people back down Chichinadze and left up along Rustaveli toward the metro station, making piecemeal progress through makeshift barricades and blazes set along the avenue by retreating protesters.

The final remnants of the crowds seen off with rubber bullets not long before dawn, stragglers detained after taking shelter in a nearby all-night pharmacy. 

As of 8am Friday, a red security level remains in effect at parliament, with further demonstrations scheduled for later this evening.

At last count, some 43 people were arrested overnight, with Georgia’s media ombudsman recording more than 20 cases of press representatives being the deliberate targets of violence from state security officials. Injuries are still being tallied.

Opposition leader Helene Khostaria is reported to have suffered a broken arm, with Nana Malashkhia – the activist made famous by waving an EU flag against an onslaught of water cannons last year – suffering a broken nose. 

Civil servants appear to have heeded the president’s call, with more than 200 diplomats, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministry employees signing unprecedented open letters and statements condemning Georgian Dream’s effective nixing of the country’s EU path.

The ambassador to Bulgaria has resigned, the head of the EU delegation to Georgia is lamenting a “heartbreaking” and “completely new reality” with a mounting number of universities across the country joining in a nationwide strike. 

At the time of writing, much is being made among commentators of the parallels between the night’s events and Ukraine’s 2013 Maidan Uprising, which saw President Viktor Yanukovych ousted by widespread popular protests after similarly stymying relations with the EU under pressure from Moscow.

Others have further noted, given the Kremlin’s continued occupation of more than a fifth of Georgian territory following the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, that the Ukrainian movement was soon followed by Putin’s annexation of Crimea, and an intervention in support of separatist forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. 

All that seems clear, for now, is that after weeks of uncertainty, of scattered, weary protests and strongly-worded statements of condemnation, the ground has finally started to shake again in Georgia.