Do not forget Georgia
- A democracy in freefall
Eighteen months ago, Georgia stood at the gates of Europe. The EU had granted it candidate status. Polls showed more than 80% of Georgians supported EU membership. The country had spent decades building democratic institutions, cultivating civil society, and anchoring itself in the Western orbit.
Today, that progress lies in ruins. What we are witnessing is not a gradual erosion of democratic norms, but an orchestrated and aggressive shift toward authoritarianism. It is deliberate. It is accelerating. And it is being carried out by Georgia’s ruling party - Georgian Dream - under the informal direction of its founder, Russia-linked oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.
This is the fastest democratic collapse in Europe in recent memory. And it offers urgent lessons for the entire West.
From EU hope to strategic authoritarianism
Georgia’s current crisis cannot be understood without acknowledging the turning point: Russia’s full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That event triggered not only geopolitical realignments, but a decisive shift in the behavior of Georgia’s ruling party.
Initially, the change was rhetorical. Anti-Western messaging became more frequent. Government spokespeople began echoing Russian narratives. But beginning in 2023, the shift became structural - with an avalanche of legislative changes that rewired Georgia’s political and legal systems.
I have long argued that Georgian Dream, since coming to power in 2012, has effectively functioned as Moscow’s Trojan horse - installed in Georgia to obstruct its Euro-Atlantic path. It was always a difficult balancing act: maintaining public support for EU and NATO aspirations while quietly undermining them through institutional sabotage, state capture of every regulatory bodies and covert alignment with Kremlin interests.
When the EU awarded Georgia candidate status in December 2023, that balancing act collapsed. It triggered a panic within Georgian Dream. The regime suddenly faced a timeline it could no longer control. And so, it responded - not with reforms the EU asked for, but with sabotage.
Beginning in early 2024, the party launched a wave of legislation designed to guarantee Georgia’s incompatibility with EU membership. That is why they re-introduced the “foreign agents” law - a political grenade designed to explode the country’s democratic credentials.
In May 2024, Georgian Dream passed that law - a direct copy of Kremlin legislation. It labeled NGOs and media outlets receiving over 20% of their funding from abroad as "agents of foreign influence," subjecting them to invasive monitoring by the Ministry of Justice. Those who refused to comply should face crippling fines and potential closure.
But that was only the beginning. When the initial law failed to intimidate all targets into submission, the regime escalated. In April 2025, it passed a new FARA law, criminalizing individuals (not just organizations) that authorities claimed acted in the interest of foreign powers. There is no clear definition of what constitutes such behavior. The Prime Minister’s anti-corruption bureau is now the sole arbiter.
The regime justified this move by wrongly claiming the law was a "word-for-word translation" of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which regulates lobbying activities for foreign governments.
But in practice, Georgia’s version targets something altogether different: not lobbyists acting on behalf of foreign states, but Georgian
journalists, news organisations, civil society activists, welfare organizations, and human rights defenders working for Georgian citizens. It turns those serving the Georgian public interest into suspected traitors - “foreign agents”.
Even participation in a foreign-funded training or civic initiative can result in imprisonment. The sentence? Up to five years.
The Machinery of Repression
The extreme transformation goes well beyond the foreign agent laws. Georgian Dream has systematically deployed legislation to neutralize dissent, marginalize the opposition, and turn the judiciary into a political weapon.
Opposition Parties: In May 2025, Parliament passed changes allowing the Constitutional Court to ban political parties based on vague ideological similarities to already banned groups. It has since launched inquiries targeting the United National Movement (UNM) and other opposition alliances. Critics warn this paves the way for a de facto one-party state.
Protest Suppression: Since late 2024, the legal code has been amended to criminalize peaceful protest. Face coverings, symbolic items (like fireworks or laser pointers), and public road blockades are now outlawed. Protesters face heavy fines and even jail time. Blocking the road during a protest is now a criminal offense, used selectively to target both activists and journalists. Preventative detention is now permitted based on suspicion alone.
Targeting Journalists: Journalists are being arrested, fined, or beaten for covering demonstrations. The government has sued three major opposition-aligned TV stations for using terms like "Ivanishvili’s regime" or "regime prisoners." Journalist Mzia Amaglobeli became the first female journalist designated a political prisoner.
Electoral Manipulation: Changes to Georgia’s Central Election Commission mean Georgian Dream can now override opposition objections and pass critical election-related decisions with a simple majority. Voter monitoring has been restricted. Ballots in the October 2024 elections were so thin, observers reported they were transparent - allowing voters’ choices to be seen by others.
This is not about poor governance. It is a coordinated strategy to lock Georgia out of the European Union and silence anyone who resists.
The suspension of EU integration
The moment of formal rupture came in November 2024, when Prime Minister Kobakhidze announced that Georgia would suspend its EU integration efforts until 2028. It followed a parliamentary election widely denounced as fraudulent.
The message to Brussels was clear: Georgian Dream will no longer play by the rules of democratic accession. Instead, it is constructing a parallel system of governance modeled on Russia’s managed democracy. Civil society has been sidelined. Gender quotas repealed. Even the word “gender” has been stripped from legislation.
Laws now prevent NGOs from receiving foreign grants without government approval. Journalists can be banned from Parliament for “asking questions.” The Georgian Public Broadcaster, once independent, is now used to spread pro-government narratives.
A society that refuses to be silenced
Yet amidst this darkness, one fact stands out: the people of Georgia have not given up.
For over six months, they have taken to the streets, every day, in the largest pro-democracy protests since the Rose Revolution. Protesters carry EU and US flags. They sing the European anthem.
Artists, actors, civil servants, teachers, students, and business leaders have all joined. Over 200 government employees have been fired for posting pro-EU statements. Many of them have since become icons of resistance.
This is not an elite movement. It is grassroots. It is broad-based. It is deeply Georgian.
The lessons of silence
In a devastating confession at the 2025 Lviv Media Forum, activist Nino Robakidze reflected on how Georgian civil society contributed - unintentionally - to the current crisis.
"We fucked up," she said. "We saw the red flags. We really saw the red flags. But it was so uncomfortable to talk about them."
Western governments had poured millions into democratic training, civic education, and strategic communications. Ironically, many of those trained now work inside Georgian Dream ministries - using their knowledge against the very institutions that trained them.
Civil society and the oposition played fair. Georgian Dream didn’t.
Long before the official results were announced, Georgian Dream mobilized car caravans of young supporters who drove through Tbilisi honking horns and waving party flags in celebration of a “victory” that had not yet been declared.
In what appeared to be an embarrassing time zone miscalculation, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán even tweeted his congratulations to Georgian Dream before the party itself had officially announced its win.
And while activists verified evidence of electoral fraud, the regime simply declared victory. The information war was lost in the space of minutes.
What the West must do now
Western governments face a stark choice: act meaningfully, or watch another aspiring democracy collapse.
The first step is to never treat Georgian Dream as a legitimate democratic actor. Its leaders are dismantling democratic institutions while laundering their wealth through Western financial systems.
What’s needed:
Targeted sanctions on key Georgian Dream figures, Bidzina Ivanishvili, judges, and prosecutors complicit in repression
Visa bans and asset freezes for those enabling political persecution
Stronger support for independent media, civil society, and investigative journalism in Georgia
A public message that EU and NATO paths are closed as long as Georgian Dream continues down this road
Non-recognition and isolation of the self-proclaimed “officials” of the illegitimate government
The stakes
This is not just Georgia’s problem. It is a global warning.
Authoritarianism today doesn’t always arrive with tanks - it arrives through legislation. Through court rulings. Through “national values” campaigns. Through false narratives of foreign meddling.
Democracy dies in drafts, not decrees.
Georgia’s people have tasted freedom. And that gives them an advantage. As Robakidze put it: “We are genuinely not part of the Russian thinking world.”
But they cannot win this alone. The question now is whether the world’s democracies are brave enough to match the courage of the Georgian people.
The courage of ordinary Georgians is extraordinary. They are singing the EU anthem as tear gas rains down. They are marching for values the West claims to defend - democracy, liberty, the rule of law. They wave US flags.
They deserve more than applause.
Democracy doesn’t collapse overnight - it dies in stages, often under legal cover. Georgia is a warning to the world: the tools of autocracy are now subtle, domestic, and dressed in law.
And this is Putin’s other kind of war - the hybrid one.
If this piece helped clarify what’s happening in Georgia, please share it - and support the brave journalists and activists on the ground who are refusing to give up.
Sources:
OC Media, “The 16 legislative changes that have shaped Georgia’s authoritarian slide” (June 2025)
Euromaidan Press, “I was not fierce enough: Georgian activist’s brutal confession as democracy collapses” (June 2025)
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Thanks for this analysis - which I shared on my site https://tamarwhereareyou.com/ - as well as on SM.