TBILISI, Oct 30 (Reuters) – For some Georgians who supported the ruling Georgian Dream party in Saturday’s disputed parliamentary election, the aspiration to go West towards the European Union had to be balanced by the brutal reality of the need to keep the peace with Russia.
The opposition and foreign observers had cast the election as a watershed moment that would decide if Georgia moves closer to Europe or leans back towards Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
“We’ve had peace these 12 years in Georgia,” said Sergo, a resident of the capital Tbilisi who has voted for Georgian Dream in every election since the party rose to power in 2012.
Observer groups, including the 57-nation Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said alleged violations, including ballot-stuffing, bribery, voter intimidation and violence, could have affected the election’s outcome.
The EU and the United States said there was not a level playing field but stopped short of saying the result was stolen by Georgian Dream. Russia accused the West of meddling.
Brussels has effectively frozen Georgia’s EU accession application over concerns of democratic backsliding under Georgian Dream and what it casts is its pro-Russian rhetoric.
Georgian Dream backers say that while they want to join Europe, they don’t want to sacrifice Georgia’s traditional values of family and church.
EU ASPIRATIONS?
For them, Georgian Dream’s party slogan, “Only with peace, dignity, and prosperity to Europe”, appeals.
Official results, which the opposition says are fraudulent, showed the party securing huge margins of up to 90% in rural areas, even as it underperformed in Tbilisi and other cities.
Ghia Abashidze, a political analyst close to Georgian Dream, attributed the party’s showing to its emphasis on keeping the peace and preserving traditional values.
He said Orban’s Hungary, which has also been accused of democratic backsliding, shared the Georgian ruling party’s core values of “family, traditions, statehood, sovereignty, peace”.
In Isani, a working class Tbilisi neighbourhood and one of the few in the capital where Georgian Dream received more votes than the four main opposition parties combined, Sergo, who did not want to give his last name, echoed the sentiment.
“We want to go to the European Union with our customs, our traditions, our mentality,” the 56-year-old said, passing freshly-baked bread to customers from his shop window. He said he believed LGBT people should receive medical treatment and go to church to become “normal people”.
RUSSIA OR EU?
By contrast, opposition supporters say the ruling party’s positions on foreign policy and social issues are incompatible with Europe’s, and keeping the peace with Russia depends on Georgia aligning with the West.
At a thousands-strong protest against the election results on Monday, Salome Gasviani said the opposition was fighting to preserve Georgia’s freedom and independence.
“We’re here to say out loud that Georgia is a very European country and our future is in the EU, in the West,” she said.
Russia, which ruled Georgia for about 200 years, won a brief war against the country in 2008, and memories of Russian tanks rolling towards Tbilisi are still fresh for many.
“The main thing is that we don’t have a war,” 69-year-old Otar Shaverdashvili, another Isani resident, said before the vote. “I remember the last war very well. No one wants another one.”
Kornely Kakachia, head of Georgian Institute of Politics think tank, said the opposition had struggled to allay fears that a change of government could risk Georgia being sucked into the Ukraine war.
“If someone asks you to choose between war and the European Union and you have this kind of choice, then of course people will choose the status quo,” he said.
Sign up here.
Reporting by Felix Light and Lucy Papachristou; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Ros Russell
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab