The ruling Georgian Dream party’s disputed victory in the country’s Oct. 26 parliamentary election, which was widely seen as a referendum on Georgia’s aspirations to join the European Union, has sparked major demonstrations and led to an opposition boycott of the parliament.
The opposition has said that the vote was rigged with the help of Russia, Georgia’s former imperial master, with Moscow hoping to keep Tbilisi in its orbit.
The government’s announcement that it was suspending negotiations to join the EU came hours after the European Parliament adopted a resolution that condemned last month’s vote as neither free nor fair. It said the election represented another manifestation of Georgia’s continued democratic backsliding “for which the ruling Georgian Dream party is fully responsible.”
European election observers said October’s vote took place in a divisive atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.
Update: After the 4th night of profests that saw Georgians stand again against their government’s tear gas and water cannons, a new report says that 80% of protesters who were detained were being subjected to violence and mistreatment by the police..
Meanwhile, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Telegram that Georgia was “moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss. Usually this sort of thing ends very badly.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also said Monday that Russia views parallels between events in Georgia and those in 2013 and 2014 in Ukraine when a wave of protests was triggered by the then pro-Russian president’s decision not to sign an association agreement with the EU.
It’s time that Western democracies understand that this is not about Ukraine and Georgia, but on democracy. Putin and his fellow dictators around the globe won’t back down until they are completely defeated. Any ‘appeasement policy’ towards Russia will be like a time travel to the 1938 Europe imo.