War or peace? Russia's wrath hangs over Georgia elections

LONDON -- Millions of voters in the small but strategically-located Black Sea nation of Georgia head to the polls on Saturday for what could prove a pivotal parliamentary election.

The contest has been framed by the Moscow-leaning incumbent government as a choice between war and peace, and by the Western-facing opposition as a choice between freedom and bondage.

Wedged between Russia to its north, NATO member Turkey to its south and the Black Sea to its west, the former Soviet nation has for centuries been subject to great power contests sweeping across the mountainous South Caucasus region.

Now, Russia's war on Ukraine looms large over Saturday's contest, in which 3 million or so voters will elect representatives to a 150-seat parliament located in the heart of the ancient capital of Tbilisi.

As in Ukraine, Russian forces still occupy around 20% of Georgian territory, the occupation a legacy of post-Soviet ethnic conflicts cemented by the 2008 war from which Russia and its local separatist clients in Abkhazia and South Ossetia emerged victorious over Tbilisi.

As in Ukraine, Georgia has sought European Union and NATO membership, prompting thinly veiled threats from Moscow. Both have received EU candidate status and open-ended commitments for future NATO accession.

And as in Ukraine, the streets of the capital have seen massed pro-Western protesters in pitched battles with security forces directed by Kremlin-sympathetic political leaders.

Fierce clashes have been prompted twice this year by the government's efforts to introduce anti-liberal legislation bearing striking similarities to similar laws passed in Russia -- specifically a foreign agents bill and measures restricting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.

The election, Kremlin spokesperson Dmirty Peskov said this month, "is none of our business."

"We see indiscriminate attempts by Western countries to put pressure on the current Georgian authorities and to directly influence the course of the election campaign," he said.

"We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Georgia in any way, and we have no plans to do so."

Friends and foes

Russia sits at the heart of the campaigns of the Georgian Dream party government and the Western-facing opposition parties hoping to unseat it.

GD frames a vote for the opposition as a vote for renewed war with Moscow.

"Georgia and Ukraine were not allowed to join NATO and were left outside," GD's billionaire founder, former prime minister and purported éminence grise Bidzina Ivanishvili said in a rare public appearance at an April rally in the capital.

"All such decisions are made by the Global War Party, which has a decisive influence on NATO and the European Union and which only sees Georgia and Ukraine as cannon fodder," said Ivanishvili, Georgia's wealthiest person who made his fortune in post-Soviet Russia via an empire of metals plants, banks and real estate.

GD's electoral campaign visuals feature images of buildings destroyed by the Russian military in Ukraine, for example the shell of the Mariupol drama theater with the caption, "Choose peace."

GD has twinned its alignment with Moscow talking points with a continued commitment to EU membership, which along with NATO membership is a highly popular goal among Georgia's population.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has characterized his party's stance on Russia as "pragmatic and principled" without "excessive hatred and aggression."

Despite public furore over recent legislative reforms and seemingly cozy relations with Moscow, GD retains robust support. Latest polls suggest it will likely be the largest party in parliament after Saturday's election.

GD did not respond to ABC News' request for comment in time for publication.

GD's anti-liberal legislation and adoption of Russian rhetoric on foreign policy and culture war issues have strained relations with Brussels and Washington, D.C. to near-breaking point.

U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Robin Dunnigan, for example, said this month that the deterioration of Washington-Tbilisi relations was "extremely unfortunate and deeply disappointing."

Dunnigan blamed GD legislative efforts that were "in contrast to the values of the United States and the EU and not in line with EU norms."

Such steps, she added, were accompanied by "negative rhetoric and disinformation about the United States, including about our actions in this country and our intentions in this country."

High stakes

None of Georgia's four opposition parties look able to challenge GD as the largest single party, and are thus jockeying for votes while planning for an interim grand coalition government which they hope can deliver major reforms.

The latest polls broadly suggest GD will win up to 40% of the vote, with the opposition collectively set to nudge past 50%.

The stakes are high. GD announced on August 20 that it would ban all pro-Western opposition groups if it won a constitutional majority -- 113 out of 150 seats -- including the United National Movement opposition party.

Alexandre Crevaux-Asatiani, a spokesperson for the UNM told ABC News the opposition is "extremely confident that we'll be able to win, regardless of any attempt to cheat."

Opposition politicians are reporting a host of alleged underhand tactics employed on behalf of GD. UNM officials have collated at least 160 complaints of electoral violations by GD and its members, Crevaux-Asatiani said, with more expected through the closing stages of the race.

Among them are alleged vote-buying schemes, voter ID confiscation and assaults against pro-Western figures.

"On the one hand, we're very optimistic, because we're seeing a very big wave of people who just want to get rid of Georgian Dream," Crevaux-Asatiani said. "But on the other hand, we're seeing unprecedented amounts of attempts to influence the election artificially."

GD's controversial legislative agenda may have motivated the opposition parties, but their unity is unproven and the success of their outreach efforts unclear.

Still, Crevaux-Asatiani said he was confident of collaborative success.

"At the end of the day, each one of us wants the same thing -- for Georgia to be in the European Union and for EU accession talks to be opened as soon as possible."

"The rest will be just an agreement on a few different priorities," none of which -- he suggested -- are deep ideological barriers.

One UNM priority will be the release of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, the Western-aligned leader who went to war with Russia in 2008 and whom President Vladimir Putin once reportedly violently threatened.

Saakashvili was jailed in 2021 on charges of abuse of power and organizing an assault on an opposition lawmaker, charges he says are politically motivated.

What's at stake, Crevaux-Asatiani said, "is whether Georgia will end up in the deep isolation that it experienced from the 13th century up to 2003, or whether it will move forward on its European path."

The noisy neighbor

The Kremlin's apparent disinterest in Saturday's election is a far cry from its reaction to the anti-foreign agent bill protests that roiled the capital for days in 2023 and 2024.

Then, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov framed the demonstrations as an "attempt to change the government by force," a complaint reflecting Moscow's long-held contempt for perceived Western-sponsored "color revolutions" across the former eastern bloc.

Former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev even suggested in August 2023 that the Kremlin could formalize its occupation of the separatist Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in response to Tbilisi's NATO membership ambitions.

Any reinvigorated westward pivot in Georgia might prompt new Russian threats, as Ivanishvili and Georgian Dream have been warning.

Crevaux-Asatiani dismissed such concerns.

"We don't believe that Russia has the strength, the energy to get involved in yet another major security operation, considering that it has now to contract out to North Korea because it doesn't have enough Russians to fight the war in Ukraine," he said.

"We're seeing that being under the Russian sphere of influence doesn't mean peace -- being under the Russian sphere of influence means chaos," Crevaux-Asatiani added. "Georgia would just end up being a pawn in Russia's chess games, which doesn't mean peace."

The U.S. and EU have been full-throated in their support for pro-Western protests in recent years, even imposing sanctions on dozens of people linked to violent attempts to suppress the demonstrations. Both, though, have refrained from sanctioning top figures like Ivanishivili.

Ukraine is living the West's gradual strategic adjustment vis-à-vis Russia. A new reformist Georgian government might also be frustrated by Western political hesitation if facing down Moscow across its mountainous northern border.

Georgians still smart at the lack of Western response to its war with Russia in 2008, as do Ukrainians at the West's failure to impose real costs on Moscow after the invasion of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014.

Even now -- after more than two years of devastating war -- Kyiv is struggling to secure the military and political assistance it believes is needed to defeat the Kremlin.

But Crevaux-Asatiani was bullish. "We are definitely confident that the West has learned its lessons from the past, which is that the best way to avoid a conflict is to make sure that the conflict doesn't start," he said.

"We know that the moment there is a democratic victory in Georgia, the United States, our NATO allies and the EU will do everything to ensure security and stability."

That might mean new security guarantees in the Black Sea, cyber security assistance, or -- as in Moldova -- "hundreds of millions of dollars worth of civil defense packages," he added.

"Now, everyone knows what Russia is," Crevaux-Asatiani said.