The political leaders of the West endlessly repeat the same political error. Georgia has just had an election. The current ruling party, Georgian Dream has won. The more pro-Western opposition has called for protests. According to Reuters polls up to March of this year indicated that Georgian Dream would win. [1] So, the result is, in fact, quite likely to be valid. This is not to say that there may not have been incidents of vote-rigging. I am not an expert on Georgia, but it does seem that the country has different constituencies. Some are happy with Georgian Dream’s more independent stand. Some are keener to move faster towards the West. The error of the Western political class is to bury their heads in the sand, fail, completely, to grasp the nuanced reality of groups with different identities, to simply assert that Ukraine/Moldova/Georgia want to join the West and to set about dragging them into the West, ignoring both those people in these countries who don’t want this course of action and the legitimate concerns of Russia about what is going on on their borders. In Ukraine this triggered a war. They may well be ready to repeat this with both Moldova and Georgia.
Just as with Ukraine we can see the same stories being told in the Western media. The media works to templates. The template is: former Soviet Block country desperately wants to join the EU and NATO but authoritarian dictator Putin is using skulduggery and/or infiltration to keep it in Russia’s orbit. I am willing to believe that Russia was running intelligence operations in Ukraine prior to 2022. However; it is also clear that Russia sought dialogue with the EU over Ukraine and was rebuffed. [2] The reality in Ukraine, as we have amply documented on this site, is that many people in Ukraine were not in favour of joining the EU and NATO, (indeed until after the present war started joining NATO was not a massive demand of Ukrainians), and some were “pro-Russian”. Georgia appears to have this in common with Ukraine, as does Moldova, that there are different groups with different identities and aspirations. Indeed, this is what we would rationally expect given that until 1991 these countries were part of the USSR, the predecessor state of modern Russia. Older people might lean towards Russia because they think Russia will provide them with the stability they knew in their youth. Others might do so because they simply believe that it is in the interests of their country to stick with Russia. In Ukraine the split is to a large extent geographical. The further East you go the more people are likely to want to stick with Russia in one way or another. I am not sure about Georgia; the Guardian article I am criticising in the next paragraph, suggests that young urban people may be more “pro-Western” and more elderly rural people more “pro-Russian”. Maybe. I don’t really have a handle on demographics in Moldova. Transnistria must be more pro-Russian so there is some geographical basis to the split in Moldova, where in the recent EU referendum the vote was 50.46% Yes and No on 49.54%. [3] Given that this situation is what we would expect, we would surely expected EU leaders to have sat down with Putin and the leaders of these countries and worked out solutions. At least as far as Ukraine goes Putin has been consistent. He would not block it joining the EU. (His position may have changed more recently given the increasing militarisation of the EU and how it is becoming ever more tied to NATO, but this was his position up to and long after the Special Operation started). But, as we have seen above, no. No attempt at all from EU leaders to recognise reality and work out a mutually acceptable solution. The Western media plays a key role in this. Their job is to tell Western publics that all of Ukraine/Georgia/Moldova want to rush into the arms of the West. And they are being prevented from doing so by evil dictator Putin. The Guardian piece on Georgia is a case in point. The article follows the standard template;
GD retained power in Saturday’s pivotal election that dealt a significant blow to the country’s long-held aspirations for EU membership, amid allegations of voter intimidation and coercion.
“the country’s”. Already; “the country’s”. In fact, even based on the claims made in this article, “up to 80%” of the country. But, they talk as if the whole country. And while polls do show quite high support for EU membership, there is also high support for Georgian Dream, as the polls cited by Reuters, we mention above, confirm.
Electoral commission data showed GD winning by suspiciously big margins of up to 90% in some rural areas, though it underperformed in bigger cities.
But the author of the article also says that “Support for the pro-western opposition groups generally came from urban and younger voters, who envision their political future with the EU.” So; he admits that support for Georgian Dream is likely to be higher in rural areas. The fact that the Electoral Commission data showed Georgian Dream “underperformed in bigger cities” is in line with what he says about the opposition generally finding support amongst young and urban voters. But he thinks it “suspicious” that the vote from rural areas shows high support for Georgian Dream.
In the summer, the parliament passed legislation imposing sweeping restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights – a move that critics say mirrors laws enacted in neighbouring Russia, where authorities have implemented a series of repressive measures against sexual minorities.
This is the standard Western misrepresentation of Russia’s laws which target media promotion of homosexuality, not homosexuality itself and which Putin explains in terms of trying to address Russia’s falling birth-rate.
As the results trickled in, [Russian] state propaganda celebrated the outcome, with Margarita Simonyan, the influential editor-in-chief of the state media outlet RT, declaring that “the Georgians had won”.
While Western propaganda tells its readers that “Georgia’s” long-standing EU aspirations have been thwarted.
Both Moldova and Georgia are in a similar situation to Ukraine. Societies in which some people favour ties with Russia and others are eager to move to full integration with the West as quickly as possible. Already, we see the West producing the narrative that delegitimises the former and legitimises the latter. Initially they may admit to some abuses in the Western aligned group but as the confrontation grows they stop doing this. The next stage in the template is to air-brush out of existence those who favour better ties with Russia. This stage is the final one before they provoke a war.
Update – BBC
I just caught the end of the BBC report on the Georgian elections. They focussed on the OSCE report about irregularities with the journalist asking a Georgian Dream spokesperson about them. The OSCE often cite irregularities while not dismissing an entire election. It is their job to report on irregularities. In many countries in the world elections are marred by some irregularities. It probably isn’t hard to find incidents in many countries which are new to democracy. This is the way the OSCE headlines their own report: “Georgia’s elections marred by an uneven playing field, pressure and tension, but voters were offered a wide choice: international observers”. This is their summary:
While voters were offered a choice between 18 candidate lists and candidates could generally campaign freely, Georgia’s parliamentary elections were marred by entrenched polarization and concerns over recently adopted legislation and its impact on fundamental freedoms and civil society, as well as highly divisive campaign rhetoric and widespread reports of pressure on voters, international observers said in a statement today.
So; candidates could generally campaign freely. “Entrenched polarization and concerns over recent legislation… as well as highly divisive campaign rhetoric”. None of these constitute electoral fraud, and could, just as well describe the US Presidential Elections. The whole OSCE report is worth reading in full. [4] It has plenty of positive things to say about the elections, including, for example; “The election administration organized the elections efficiently…. largely peaceful election.” and “Yet the engagement shown on election day—from the active voter participation, robust presence of citizen and party observers, and rich diversity of voices—gives the sign of a system that is still growing and evolving, with a democratic vitality under construction.”
But, already, the narrative is being constructed by the Western media. Russia stole the elections….. The BBC report did include two pieces to camera, one with someone who was for Georgian Dream and one for someone who was seemingly for the opposition. But the main message was the one about irregularities. Viewers who are not familiar with OSCE election monitoring reports and with problems with imperfect elections, and who are used to thinking that any irregularities, are indicative of a major problem, as they would be in a UK election, are being conditioned to think that the elections were rigged.
One final point. the media will talk about Russian influence in Georgia. Somehow, they talk much less about Western influence campaigns. According to the EU, they have (or had; some have been curtailed recently) 140 projects in Georgia: “A wide range of partners including civil society, international organisations, private companies, the Georgian government, and EU member states implement these projects. ” [5] These projects overall are likely to be promoting a pro-EU outlook, not a traditional, conservative or “pro-Russian” one. This seems to be the case in general terms: “The EU has created a myriad of opportunities for the country’s younger population to live and study in Europe, enabling Georgian youth to return after their studies and put this acquired knowledge to use to build a more robust and successful Georgia.” As per the Guardian article linked above, the young people – who are specifically targeted with funds and opportunities by the EU, are also the opposition voters. Talk about election interference.
Georgian Dream has not repudiated Georgia’s intention of joining the EU. [6] It seems that we can say that a majority of Georgians want both the more traditional and “pro-Russian” outlook of Georgian Dream and EU membership! They, sensibly, don’t want to rush headlong into the EU, throwing away their own traditions and values in the process. Victor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, grasps this:
“Georgia is a conservative, Christian and pro-Europe state,” he wrote on the social media platform X after his arrival on Monday. “Instead of useless lecturing, they need our support on their European path” [6]
Once again, the US, the EU and NATO seem intent on dividing a country and provoking a crisis. All are siding with the opposition and denouncing the irregularities. [6]
Notes
- https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/georgian-ruling-partys-sway-over-election-commission-boosted-before-october-poll-2024-03-25/
- “…example Barroso being quoted by news agencies as late as 29 November 2013 as saying: ‘Russia’s inclusion in the talks on setting up an Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine is wholly unacceptable.’ ” Sakwa, Richard. Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (p. 76). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wnr5qdxe7o
- https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/georgia/579376
- https://eu4georgia.eu/eu-support/ (How did I validate that this is a genuine EU website? By going to this page, https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/european-neighbourhood-policy/countries-region/georgia_en?wt-search=yes which uses the europa.eu domain and noting that it recommends and refers visitors to eu4georgia.eu)
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/28/west-calls-for-probe-into-georgia-election-russia-denies-interfering