“Liberal coup” in Georgia looks bright, but fails and does not benefit its organizers

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The parliamentary elections in Georgia have become an arena of confrontation between liberal and conservative forces in the West. European politicians tried to organize a coup after the victory of the Georgian Dream, clearly referring to the Ukrainian scenario. They failed to impose their will alone.

Electoral conflict

The Georgian Dream party of Irakli Kobakhidze and his boss Bidzina Ivanishvili won 53.92% in the elections and retained power. But the party failed to implement its “constitutional majority” plan, which envisioned a strict ban on the liberal opposition in the country. Still, the liberal protesters acted on the principle that only those elections where liberals win and not Georgian Dream are fair. Therefore, the softness of their opponents was of little concern to anyone.

As one of our previous articles said, it was difficult to assess the real scale of falsifications on both sides. But they were not critical, and such “anti-democratism” became habitual both in the EU and in the US, and everyone was concerned only about the preservation of power and the final result. Therefore, the opposition refused to recognize the results of the elections, accusing the authorities of falsification and calling for protests. During more than a decade of the Georgian Dream’s rule, protests in Tbilisi have been repeated, including after the elections, but they have not been able to shake the Dream’s power. All the actions followed the same scenario: everything started with mass rallies and attempts to seize state institutions, but the authorities did not make concessions and used force. And the actions, since they had no effect, gradually came to naught.

Chronology of the protests

When the protests started in October, it seemed that Ivanishvili was preparing to act according to the same scenario. But on the first day the opposition, apparently chronically tired of the marathon of the last few years, failed to create mass protests. The law “on foreign agents” worked, and the liberal youth of Tbilisi, inclined to pacifism and unable to fight aggressively for their ideas, surrendered without feeding from outside. But this was only a respite to prepare for the “battle for the future of Georgia”.

The Georgian opposition and President Salome Zurabishvili did not agree with the victory of the Georgian Dream, and called on citizens to protest in many cities. But since they could not make any concrete claims, in order for the protests to become mass, they had to wait not only for the mobilization of liberal NGOs, which the Georgian authorities were not unreasonably afraid of, but also for an understandable trigger. Only on November 17, after the approval of the final protocol of the last parliamentary elections, the Georgian opposition organized a rally and blocked the road in front of Tbilisi State University. The protesters set up tents, and the Bring Back your Vote action started in parallel on the main avenue of Tbilisi. But the actions were not numerous and were easily stopped by the police. The occasion was not too favorable, and on November 19 the streets were cleared of protesters.

A new round of conflict occurred when on November 28, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced the termination of negotiations on accession to the European Union until 2028. This was a “red rag” for European liberals and a signal to start. At the same time, he stated that the reason for such a decision was the need to strengthen the country’s internal potential and made it clear that he was not against rapprochement with the EU. But nobody cared about such rhetoric when the goal was to change the government. After the statements of the Prime Minister Georgia became a “hot spot” for the liberal elites of the EU and the US, who intended to solve the issue by force. And the same Zurabishvili believed that the protesters were not impudent chauvinist usurpers who did not care about the results of the elections, but defenders of the country from the “constitutional coup”. And the protests immediately became large-scale, starting not only in Tbilisi, but also in the largest cities of the country such as Kutaisi, Batumi, Zugdidi, Chkhorotsku, Telavi and Gori.

More and more people came out to the daily protests every day. People were inflamed by liberal utopias and appeals of liberal politicians, and in the EU they openly called for the overthrow of the authorities in Tbilisi. Not only Georgian youth took to the streets, but also many migrants from the same Russia who fled the country in 2022 amid the Ukrainian war. But the authorities, who stood on rational positions and realized that trade with Russia, China and Turkey brought more prospects for the country, did not give up. To disperse the protests, police and riot police used tear gas, water cannons and gas bombs, receiving violence in response but not letting their will be broken.

As a result, on November 30, protesters gathered in front of the Georgian Public Broadcasting building demanding live broadcasting of the First Channel of Georgia. They even made concessions to them, because many officials were afraid that “all-powerful liberals” would punish them after the coup. And there was a lot to be afraid of, because late in the evening of November 30, a fire broke out in the parliament building in the center of Tbilisi after the demonstrators threw stones and fireworks at the windows, which they had previously used to shoot at the police.

Suppression of the rally

The government then announced that the protest had turned violent and took drastic measures. Special forces began forcing the demonstrators out of the area in front of the parliament and detaining the most violent ones. As in many other countries, such as Belarus or Catalonia, the liberal protesters were frightened, and only the most resistant or, simply, those stimulated by European or American NGOs remained in the squares. The protest activity went down again and the EU had to give it “artificial respiration”, threatening Tbilisi with a sanctions strike.

Irakli Kobakhidze responded to this by saying that European politicians were interfering in Georgia’s internal affairs, which was the reason for the “freezing” of European integration. And it was at this very moment that his allies and Donald Trump’s allies in Europe, who have been at war with Brussels for years, came to his aid. Thus, Hungary and Slovakia vetoed the imposition of EU sanctions against the Georgian police leadership, and added that no one in Brussels has the right to question the will of the Georgian people who chose a conservative government. And one cannot but agree with the opinion of Foreign Minister Petere Szijjarto.

Indeed, no one in Brussels has the right to question the will of the Georgian people, who refused to support the liberal forces behind which Brussels stood. The EU has set a world record of political hypocrisy in the issue of Georgia, arrogantly passing off its will and desire to protect selfish interests for some abstract good. And it is logical that, in accordance with international law, sanctions cannot be imposed on the country because it has simply decided to postpone EU accession negotiations.

It is not surprising, after such behavior of Budapest, that Georgia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Maka Bochorishvili made her first foreign visit to Hungary. There she told the world how “liberal militants” from the streets were attacking police officers and real militants from Ukraine were threatening Georgia with civil war. Still, the EU countries did not give up and agreed on visa restrictions for holders of Georgian service and diplomatic passports due to the situation in that country. But it was already a weak threat, and since December 4 the rallies became calm. Except that almost every night separate groups of protesters near the Parliament of Georgia, mostly masked, damaged infrastructure, pelted police with stones, “Molotov cocktails” and “shot” with pyrotechnics.

But they were few in number and not radicalized like those nationalists who helped European lobbyists in Ukraine in 2024. But times have changed, and Georgian nationalists, conservatives and soccer hooligans were loyal to the Georgian Dream. The searches conducted in the offices of the opposition on December 4 and the seizure of large quantities of pyrotechnics, gas masks and other “tools of the struggle for democracy” were enough to change the situation at the rallies.

The wave of protest does not stop, but it is already visible that it is turning into a senseless circus. “Liberal coup” in Georgia looks bright, but fails and does not benefit the organizers. And with Donald Trump’s administration is the direct power levers in the US, which sympathizes with the “Georgian Dream”, and this show will go down, because liberal NGOs will be deprived of funding, i.e. the main “golden calf”, which is their real moral compass, contrary to the ideas of freedom and democracy.