At the Joseph Stalin Museum in Gori, the small Georgian town where the Soviet dictator was born, a line of guides is waiting to tell you the story of the local boy who made it big. <\/p>\n
They can list the birthdays of Stalin\u2019s family and recite the poems he wrote as a schoolboy (for Stalin \u201ccould have been a poet, but chose to be a great leader\u201d). But on other things, they are less exact. Of the millions killed in the gulag, \u201cmistakes were made.\u201d Of show trials, they have little to say. <\/p>\n
So revered is Stalin by some that when the government thought it time to remove his towering statue in 2010, they did so unannounced at night, lest locals protest. But while some older voters in rural towns like Gori might harbor fond memories of life under communism and pine for a Soviet past, they seemed set to be swept away by younger generations who have grown up knowing nothing but democracy, and who are happy to see Stalin consigned to history\u2019s dustbin. <\/p>\n
Now, as the Caucasus nation counts down to its October 26 parliamentary election, the specter of authoritarianism looms large once again. <\/p>\n
Many observers fear the ruling Georgian Dream party will resort to anything to stay in power. It has buried the liberal values it espoused when it took office 12 years ago and effectively torpedoed Georgia\u2019s bid to join the European Union. Its founder, the secretive oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, has threatened to imprison his political rivals after the election and ban the main opposition party. <\/p>\n
After spending years in the shadows, Ivanishvili \u2013 who made his billions in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union and served as Georgia\u2019s prime minister from 2012 to 2013 \u2013 returned late last year as the party\u2019s honorary chairman and has since given a string of conspiracy-tinged speeches. He claims Georgia is being controlled by a foreign \u201cpseudo-elite\u201d and that the opposition belongs to a \u201cGlobal War Party\u201d bent on dragging the country into conflict with Russia. This year, Georgian Dream pushed through a Kremlin-style \u201cforeign agent\u201d law, which critics say aims to shut down watchdogs who call the government to account. <\/p>\n
For many, Ivanishvili\u2019s rhetoric is eerily reminiscent of the past from which many Georgians are keen to escape. And the anti-Western posturing of Georgian Dream, along with the country\u2019s controversial foreign agent law, directly mirrors President Vladimir Putin\u2019s crackdown on domestic political opposition in neighboring Russia. <\/p>\n
In a speech last month in Gori, Ivanishvili also broke a taboo in Georgian society. He said Georgia should apologize for the 2008 war with Russia, for which many Georgians blame Moscow. Russia fought the five-day war in support of pro-Kremlin separatists in Georgia\u2019s South Ossetia region, just north of Gori. Combined with Abkhazia, another breakaway region, Russia today de facto occupies 20% of Georgia\u2019s territory. <\/p>\n
Ivanishvili said apologizing to Russia would help preserve \u201c12 years of uninterrupted peace\u201d the country has enjoyed under Georgian Dream\u2019s leadership, which he warned the opposition could jeopardize. The message has some appeal to his rural base but sparked a political firestorm. <\/p>\n
Mikheil Saakashvili, who was Georgia\u2019s president during the war but has been imprisoned since 2021 for abuse of power while in office, called the comments a \u201cbetrayal.\u201d <\/p>\n
Younger, more pro-European Georgians were also outraged. Their earliest memories are not of easier lives under communism, but of Russian tanks rolling into Gori and towards the capital, Tbilisi. Walking out of the Stalin Museum \u2013 past his personal railway carriage, past the hut in which he was born \u2013 it is easy to find buildings still scarred with bullet holes from the 2008 war. Many buildings still lie in ruins, while Stalin Avenue has been kept pristine. <\/p>\n
For these Georgians, Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 rekindled memories of Russian aggression in their own country. They want nothing more than for Georgia to slip from the Kremlin\u2019s orbit and continue its march toward a European future. <\/p>\n
But many fear the government is now heading in the opposite direction, and that Georgia could be on the cusp of returning to the one-party rule from which it escaped a generation ago. <\/p>\n
At a press conference in Tbilisi on Thursday, Georgia\u2019s President Salome Zourabichvili \u2013 a pro-Western but largely ceremonial figure who has urged Georgians to vote against the government \u2013 said she \u201crules out any outcome other than a victory for the pro-European forces,\u201d citing polls which routinely show that only around a third of the public support Georgian Dream. <\/p>\n
A question puzzling many is why the formerly center-left Georgian Dream has made a sudden authoritarian pivot. <\/p>\n
The party\u2019s origin was unusual. It takes its name from a rap song by Ivanishvili\u2019s son, Bera. Although some suspected Ivanishvili \u2013 whose net worth is equivalent to about a quarter of the country\u2019s GDP \u2013 might pursue a pro-Russian path, during his brief premiership he tacked close to Europe and even promised eventual NATO membership. <\/p>\n
\u201cA modern civil society has been a cherished goal of the Georgian people since we regained our independence 20 years ago,\u201d Ivanishvili wrote in an email to then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012, subsequently leaked. \u201cUnfortunately, old habits are hard to overcome.\u201d <\/p>\n
Having abandoned its liberal origins, Sabanadze said, the party is now \u201cclearly copying\u201d the model of Hungary\u2019s Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest this year, Georgia\u2019s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze praised Orban as a \u201crole model,\u201d parroting his claims to defend \u201chomeland, language and faith.\u201d The government has also passed legislation curbing LGBTQ+ rights. <\/p>\n
But now it is poised to go much further. Ivanishvili has promised a \u201cNuremberg trial\u201d against members of the opposition, who have been subject to increasing persecution. During street protests in Tbilisi against the foreign agent law, Levan Khabeishvili \u2013 chair of the pro-Western United National Movement (UNM) \u2013 said he was brutally beaten by police. He appeared the next day in parliament, his face blackened and swollen. <\/p>\n
The Georgian government did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n
A consequence of Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine was the EU\u2019s decision to offer Georgia candidate status. Brussels, keen to stem Russia\u2019s influence in former Soviet countries, put Georgia \u2013 along with Ukraine and Moldova \u2013 on an accelerated path to membership. <\/p>\n
Many say this was despite Georgian Dream, rather than because of it. During protests against the \u201cforeign agent\u201d law, the images of citizens waving EU flags being buffeted back by water cannons put pressure on Brussels to reward the Georgian people, of whom more than 80% support EU membership, polls show. <\/p>\n
Whether Ivanishvili wanted candidate status is not clear. Joining the EU would require cleaning up the country\u2019s judiciary and giving up power if Georgian Dream is voted out on Saturday. His opponents doubt he is willing to do this. <\/p>\n
Under the country\u2019s new proportional voting system, Khabeishvili of the UNM says Georgia\u2019s fragmented opposition will have no trouble forming a coalition after the election. But he fears that Ivanishvili will seek to cling to power after an election loss. <\/p>\n
If this happens, he predicts huge protests in Tbilisi and throughout the country. Here, things could get ugly. Sergei Naryshkin, director of Russia\u2019s Foreign Intelligence Service, said in August that Georgia\u2019s Western allies are plotting a coup to remove Georgian Dream from power. He warned Russia will be on standby to prevent this. <\/p>\n
For Sabanadze, the stakes could not be higher: How Georgians vote on Saturday, and how the government responds, will determine whether the country remains on a path to Europe or becomes more like Belarus. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was in Brussels, I thought that Georgia would never become an authoritarian state again, because it\u2019s just something that we find very difficult to accept,\u201d she said. \u201cGeorgians will put up a fight. The Belarus scenario will not happen easily.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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