After the electoral battle, the smoke begins to clear. Georgia’s government has its victory (unfairly, the opposition says), and the European Union (EU) is responding with carefully considered signaling. This is a political ceasefire, but it’s not yet peace.
On November 18, the bloc proposed freezing €100m ($105m) in aid to the government and instead handing the same sum to Georgian voluntary organizations. The message was straightforward enough — the groups that have been the target of sustained government pressure are still supported, and the newly re-elected government is on notice.
Brussels will also send a fact-checking mission to Tbilisi. This comes on the heels of the October 26 parliamentary elections when the ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD), claimed victory, and the opposition contested the results by staging protests.
Yet the opposition so far has failed to mount a sustained challenge. Despite 12 years of defeat by Georgian Dream, opposition parties remain poorly attuned to what the population wants and struggle to find tactics to achieve their longer-term goals.
Although more united than previously under several umbrella groups and securing around 40% of the popular vote in the elections (if the official numbers are to be believed), deep-seated differences among opposition parties — such as the United National Movement (UNM), the Ahali Party, Giorgi Gakharia’s For Georgia, and Lelo — have prevented effective collaboration.
Moreover, while opposition leaders have accused the ruling party of widespread electoral fraud, they have failed to mobilize large-scale protests, substantiate claims of widespread voter manipulation and provide a clear strategy for challenging the ruling party through legal action or protests.
Demonstrations have been sporadic and relatively small. What matters is public mistrust. Many believe their threats to boycott parliamentary proceedings are temporary, as was the case after the 2020 elections. Then, a six-month boycott ended with opposition deputies returning to the legislature.
Georgian Dream says it won 54% of the vote, thus narrowly avoiding the need for a coalition government, which would have weakened its grip on power. However, it failed to win a constitutional majority (it took 89 seats but needed 113), which highlights the opposition’s ability to command a significant portion of the electorate, even in its fragmented state. Whether this continues in the coming months and, indeed, years is hard to say given Georgia’s tumultuous internal politics.
Exit polls by two Western polling groups showed the opposition won a majority and described the official outcome as an indication of vote manipulation. But the mass demonstrations of April and May, when the government passed its illiberal foreign agent law, have failed to materialize.
The ongoing tensions between the ruling party and the opposition suggest that meaningful cooperation is unlikely. Georgian Dream’s pre-election rhetoric included proposals to ban major opposition parties, a move that, if pursued, could backfire. The possible return of the UNM has proved a useful way to mobilize its voters, and any such ban would force the West to take sterner action.
International developments have also played a critical role in easing pressure on Georgian Dream. The West has recently grappled with a series of disruptive elections that have shifted its collective focus away from the South Caucasus. For example, Donald Trump’s return to power in the US and political upheaval in Germany have created distractions that offer Georgia some respite.
Nevertheless, the election results are unlikely to repair Georgia’s strained relations with the West, which have reached their lowest point since the Soviet Union’s collapse. While the West is unlikely to apply significant pressure on Tbilisi, at least for now, relations are expected to stagnate.
The EU, for instance, contrary to what the ruling party claims, may freeze relations at their current level — maintaining the visa-free regime but withholding progress on Georgia’s EU membership bid. Meanwhile, the US is expected to reduce its engagement in the South Caucasus as it will likely shift focus to the Middle East and Indo-Pacific regions.
GD may take a more pragmatic approach, potentially offering concessions such as withdrawing controversial legislation — like the proposed agents law — and making gestures on LGBT+ rights to mend ties with Brussels. This strategy aligns with recent comments by Josep Borrell, Vice-President of the European Commission, though Tbilisi has yet to respond.
Georgia’s relationship with the West will become increasingly transactional. True, a complete breakdown of ties is unlikely due to shared interests in regional stability and the Middle Corridor expansion or energy exports, so both sides are likely to prioritize cooperation over deeper integration. For Tbilisi, this means dealing with the expectations of a strongly pro-European electorate while pursuing warmer relations with Moscow.
The ruling party may have weathered the storm but it will face internal challenges in the coming years. Its popularity will be heavily contingent upon how the opposition transforms itself and whether there is a Western willingness to reengage.
More risky is a geopolitical situation where Georgia might end up in limbo, somewhere between the West and the Kremlin.
Emil Avdaliani is a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a scholar of Silk Roads. He can be reached on Twitter/X at @emilavdaliani.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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