Is the Georgian Dream the West’s nightmare?

Opposition parties in the country of Georgia are accusing the incumbent Georgian Dream of stealing Saturday’s election, calling the results “falsified” and a “constitutional coup.” While the country’s electoral commission declared Georgian Dream the winner with 54% of the vote, several exit polls predicted a win for the opposition. Three monitoring organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, citedirregularities such as vote buying, double voting, hate speech, and Russian disinformation.

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The results bode poorly for Georgia’s accession to the EU: While Georgian Dream has promised a path to membership – something 80% of Georgians support – its rhetoric has grown increasingly authoritarian, anti-Western, and pro-Russia and China. The party’s founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, whomade his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, campaigned on keeping Georgia out of the war in Ukraine, and the party has proposed anti-LGBTQ+ laws mirroring those in Russia.

What’s next for Georgia? Pro-western opposition leadersare planning protests and a Parliamentary boycott, similar to the five-month stalemate that followed Georgia’s 2020 election, which EU mediators eventually sorted out. But that’s not likely to happen in 2024: Georgian Dream has vowed to outlaw its opponents and pro-western groups. Meanwhile, Hungarian leader Viktor Orban announced a visit to Tbilisi on Monday – another sign that authoritarianism is gaining ground.