MEI: Georgian Elections Strong Mandate for Democratization & Westernization
The Middle East Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank and cultural center in Washington, D.C., has recently released an article by Iulia Joja, a senior fellow for MEI's Frontier Europe Initiative, regarding Georgia's 2020 Parliamentary Elections, calling it "A strong mandate for democratization and Westernization."
"Georgia’s parliamentary elections resulted in an expected landslide victory for the ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD). The Economist Intelligence Unit predicted a major gain for the incumbent party, motivated primarily by their spectacular managing of COVID-19. GD’s leadership team are indeed entitled to give themselves credit for their governing during the pandemic, but this is not the only reason they have secured another term. Their win was also empowered by the primary opposition, which adopted a flawed campaign strategy, weakened by its most powerful and divisive figure, Mikheil Saakashvili," reads the publication.
The author notes that the opposition’s political strategy focused on two issues. GD and its billionaire leader Bidzina Ivanishvili have been accused of backsliding the country’s democracy and of ties with Russia. However, she points out, during the eight years of GD leadership, Georgia has made significant progress on both democratization and Western integration.
"Georgia’s actual weak spot is the economy. Despite constant economic growth, 20% of Georgians still live in poverty. The next four years will place enormous pressure on the ruling party to navigate Georgia out of the post-pandemic economic crisis. If the opposition can build a coherent political strategy focused on policies geared toward a strong economic reform program, they will stand a much better chance in Georgia’s 2024 elections.
"Georgia’s opposition has experienced internal fragmentation and polarization, driven largely by the increasingly controversial Saakashvili, known amongst many in the West for the 2008 Georgia-Russia War and for extreme public moves like threatening to jump off a Kiev rooftop. After he was voted out in 2012, Saakashvili lost his Georgian citizenship, gained Ukrainian citizenship (which was later revoked and re-bestowed), was sentenced in Georgia in absentia for abuse of power, and is now de facto running in the Georgian elections from Ukrainian self-exile. Meanwhile, Saakashvili’s ongoing presence has not fared well with the Georgian public. Voter turnout during Georgia’s 2018 presidential elections increased in the second round by 10%, with voters mobilizing against the opposition.
"While the opposition’s campaign focused on democratic backsliding and foreign policy, the reality is that Georgia has fared well over the last eight years and GD has stayed on the path of democratization and reform. According to Western standards of democracy, Georgia has made tremendous progress over the last eight years. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index scores Georgia higher than EU members Greece, Slovakia, and Italy. Georgia ranks 12 worldwide in terms of economic freedom, up from 26 in 2010 and ahead of many EU countries. On press freedom, Georgia ranks 60 in the world, slightly better than Poland and significantly better than a decade ago when Georgia ranked 100. And last year, the World Bank placed Georgia in the world’s top seven countries for Ease of Doing Business (and first in the region)," reads the article.
The author further notes that the incumbent party’s willingness to give into the opposition’s pressure and modify the electoral system to a proportional one has resulted in changes enshrined into Georgia’s Constitution, effective in 2024. But the opposition refused to vote on these constitutional changes and initiated protests to pressure parliament into changing the electoral process for the 2020 elections. Negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties, brokered and commended by the West, resulted in a part-proportional voting system for the 2020 elections.
"Electoral reform negotiations between GD and opposition parties also set the minimum required votes on forming a government at 40%, mostly because the opposition thought GD could not reach the threshold. But a remarkably well managed COVID response strengthened the incumbent party in the polls, enabling GD to stay in power for a third term with over 48% votes in the first round. At the same time, the limit set for entering parliament has been negotiated to just 1% of votes, enabling a considerable number of opposition parties to enter parliament. This means that opposition parties have the potential to strengthen and significantly increase their power before the next elections," the article points out.
"The Georgian Dream government managed the pandemic too well not to ensure a landslide. Georgia’s 2020 free and fair elections secure the country’s position as a regional beacon of democracy. Such well-deserved democratic progress shines bright in the context of democratic backsliding across Central and Eastern Europe, and even brighter when considering the regional context of Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran, and the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Georgia’s ruling party will face two major challenges over the next four years: first, a proportional electoral system which will institutionally strengthen the opposition, and second, the most difficult economic recovery it has seen in a decade of power," the author concludes.
Source: mei.edu
Iulia Joja is a senior fellow for MEI's Frontier Europe Initiative. The views expressed here are her own.
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