Georgia: An Unexpected Expected Crisis
Georgia: An Unexpected Expected Crisis
Author(s): Ghia Nodia
Subject(s): Civil Society, Governance
Published by: CEPS Centre for European Policy Studies
Summary/Abstract: In the evening of June 19th, I with two other experts took part in a talk-show on a Georgian TV channel. We all agreed that for the moment, the Georgian Dream (GD) party led by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a secretive plutocrat, looked all but impregnable in power and had good chances to win again in the next parliamentary elections in October 2020. Yes, it was losing popularity for being ineffective and increasingly autocratic. However, it benefitted from controlling all levers of power and weakness of the opposition. In November 2019, it used blatant vote-buying and alleged voter intimidation to help the candidate it supported, Salome Zurabishvili, to win presidential elections. What would have stopped it from doing the same again?
Series: 3 DCFTAs OP-ed
- Page Count: 4
- Publication Year: 2019
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF
