🇬🇪 Georgia on my mind: Parliamentary elections on 26 October

[MaxQue]

A bit of drama in the parliament today: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hundreds-georgians-protest-parliament-set-advance-foreign-agent-bill-2024-04-15/

And keep in mind, Aleko Elisashvili's Citizens Party is considered to be part of the constructive opposition that doesn't fully oppose working with GD. One of their MPs was elected Public Defender in 2023, and they were one of the first parties to negotiate the end of the parliamentary boycott back in 2020. Parts of the opposition consider him a traitor, but today he was celebrated by protesters for his action.

Today, the Judiciary Committee passed the bill, and during the hearing the committe chairman expelled all opposition MPs and turned off their microphones if they even mentioned the word "Russian Law". It is expected to go through the first of three readings tomorrow, afterwards a fourth one is required to override the President's veto. She once again took side with the protesters, just like last year (when she was on a working trip in the US).

The protests today were quite large in size, but relatively peaceful, even though police apparently threatened to disassemble the demonstrators and had tear gas and water cannons prepared. An escalation from their side might have led to even more turmoil. 14 people were reportedly detained, including the chairman of the libertarian Girchi/More Freedom Party, Zurab Japaridze.

The spirit of the protests remains quite unbroken compared to last time. As said, any escalation could quickly backfire, but thus far the crowd remains determined. Not sure yet what the electoral effect will be. The law will not help GD by any means, but it remains more than questionable as to whether the opposition can really capitalize of it in the long term, given the constant state of disarray, disorientation and fragmentation. The opposition might start to organize by May, after which the electoral code cannot be amended anymore, in case GD does any surprise changes.

Btw, one underrated aspect in this might be the perspective discreditation of CSOs and NGOs that try to oversee the electoral process. In 2003, their parallel counts were part of the reason why the massive fraud of the parliamentary elections got exposed.

How naive protesters are. The only way GD will ever give up power is through a coup