The Irreversible Choice

Op-Ed

The Central Election Committee (CEC) has decided to hold the second round of elections on November 28, a Wednesday, in the middle of the working week. The only thing the government can do to guarantee people head out to the boxes is to make it a holiday and put the final dot to the Presidential elections 2018. Everything else is now up to the voters and who they will choose – Salome Zurabishvili or Grigol Vashadze.

Before the CEC announced the official date of the second round, an activist of the Georgian Dream said in Telavi that it would be November 11, later, the same date was spoken by the Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze. Only afterwards was the official date made public.

There is a feeling that both the government and opposition are getting ready for a completely different date, not November 28; it seems as if the presidential elections are a prelude before the crucial upcoming battle; political apocalypse in the face of a civil war has been announced. The ruling party leaders are threatening chaos and turmoil to follow if Grigol Vashadze gets elected. But what does electing a president deprived of any rights have to do with “civil war” or revolution? GD leaders Pokhadze, Volski, Beselia, Mdinaradze, Talakvadze and others give no explanation. A Leninian explanation is that revolutions happen in places where the government can no longer manage the way it could, while the people do not wish to live the same way any longer. Apparently, this is what GD is trying to hide from us: this is why they are hiding the real reason behind the alleged upcoming revolution. However, there are other reasons as well, ones that threaten the ruling party with a much more dramatic outcome than a revolution.

Everyone remembers the coalition of Georgian Dream in 2012, a union of a few political subjects that claimed victory over the United National Movement and came to power. The parliamentary elections in 2016 saw an already unified party as the GD took part in the election as an independent party. As they proudly ranted at the time, they were now without “extra burden”, by which they meant the Head of the Parliament and his party Republicans, Gubaz Sanikidze’s forumers and the Free Democrats. Bidzina Ivanishvili became sole leader of the party, winning almost everything he could have won, and his party was presented with the parliamentary majority. However, instead of a political renaissance for Ivanishvili, he has been left in political decadence. Within the last six years, Ivanishvili has created one of the most vicious and paradoxical systems known to the political science: “Feeble Dictatorship” or “Powerless Authoritarianism”. On the one hand, he established control over all governmental branches, enabled a massive constitutional majority in parliament and also a large majority in the municipalities, he completely cleaned the political pitch and every more or less experienced politician was put aside, but … he left in the hands of his main opponent “nuclear” resources such as: popularity, respect, influence, talent and a creative broadcasting TV station! In such paradoxical circumstances, authoritarianism as well as dictatorship will inevitably come to ruin. Of course, Mikheil Saakashvili would never make such a silly mistake of enabling the existence of such a popular oppositional TV station. The moment he did, it was over! The only thing is that he had the discernment to feel the momentum and “follow” the process in 2012. Obviously, Ivanishvili is not planning to do the same and is asking his apprentices to announce a revolution.

Who will follow Ivanishvili towards a revolution and who won’t is the main question, not only for the opposition but the whole Georgian Dream too. Today, the 115 MPs of GD are distributed over eight fractions. This union is inhomogeneous and isn’t necessarily based on any level of loyalty for Ivanishvili. There was a time when the parliamentary list was created by Bidzina Ivanishvili, now-Mayor Kakhi Kaladze and ex-premier Giorgi Kvirikashvili. The ones they chose made it into parliament. These people have different ideas and political goals, and it seems that Ivanishvili’s statement about the “return of the old” meant that he doesn’t trust the ones that were chosen by Kvirikashvili and Kaladze, and in the future battle he needs loyal people. To what extent the Dream will fall apart after the elections is unknown, for now, the only thing we can say is that if Grigol Vashadze gets chosen, this process will accelerate and become irreversible.

By Zaza Jgarkava