The McCain Institute at Arizona State University organized an assessment mission to Tbilisi, Georgia, December 9-13, to meet with a diverse cross-section of Georgian society. The group sought to learn more about how Georgians are dealing with the stress caused by the October 26 parliamentary elections.

“The mission included former diplomats, journalists, and representatives from civil society from Europe and the US. The delegation met with representatives from political parties, civil society, media, election observer groups, regional civic leaders and media, minority communities, foreign policy and international organizations, embassies, the business sector, the artistic and cultural sector, and the Central Election Commission. The delegation requested but did not succeed in securing meetings with Georgian Dream party (GD) representatives and President Salome Zourabichvili.

The group issued the following statement regarding their mission to Georgia:

We heard from many interlocutors that ahead of the 26 October elections, GD conducted a widespread campaign of intimidation and threats, vote buying, raids of civil society organizations, abuse of state resources, confiscation of personal IDs. Election observers presented their findings and documentation from Election Day to the delegation, describing serious irregularities, including multiple voting, ballot stuffing, lack of secrecy, intimidation, etc.

Following the elections, GD announced that it would suspend plans for four years to pursue EU accession, despite overwhelming public support for a European future. This spurred tens of thousands of Georgians to begin peacefully protesting, including in villages that had never before experienced such expression. Our interlocutors described how black-clad security teams with no identifying insignia have been systematically attacking and beating protesters, while uniformed police stand by and do nothing. The mission met with several young men who described how they were captured after leaving the protests and beaten unconscious by the security forces. They all spent nights in hospital with broken bones, facial injuries, and concussions. Subsequently they were falsely charged with hooliganism and vandalism.

People, particularly journalists and civil society representatives, are also being abducted no where near the protests, and subsequently beaten and charged.

The mission was alarmed at the scale and severity of official violence against citizens engaged in peaceful expression. It is a miracle that no one has yet been killed, but this risk will grow if the torture persists. In the awful event that there are deaths at the hands of the government’s thugs, the political environment could become even more volatile.

As noted in the McCain Institute’s pre-election assessment in September, and documented by Freedom House and International IDEA, Georgia’s democracy has been backsliding for several years as GD seeks to maintain power under the control of Bidzina Ivanishvili. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this authoritarian decline accelerated.

The GD government has turned against Georgia’s strongest supporters in the West, even fabricating the existence of a Western “Global War Party” which allegedly wants to bring Georgia into war with Russia.

Georgian Dream convened the new parliament on November 25, an act described as illegal by some legal watchdogs since election integrity cases were still pending in the constitutional court and the President, who is required to approve parliament, did not. Opposition representatives have refused their mandates and declined to be seated in parliament”, - reads the statement of McCain Institute.

This statement is signed by Laura Thornton, Senior Director of Global Democracy Programs, McCain Institute; former head of National Democratic Institute in Georgia/Michael Cecire, Georgetown University, formerly at Helsinki Committee, U.S. Congress/William Courtney, former US Ambassador to Georgia/Daniel Gleichgewicht, The Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe (Poland)/Alexandra Hall, former British Ambassador to Georgia; current co-host of Disorder Podcast/Laura Linderman, Director of Programs and Senior Fellow, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, American Foreign Policy Council/Taavi Toom, Estonian Ambassador (ret.), etc.