Opinion: Georgian Dream shifted from authoritarianism to dictatorship
Giorgi Badridze, a researcher at the Randel Foundation, argues that the ruling Georgian Dream party has moved from authoritarianism to dictatorship. In his view, the imprisonment of political opponents and the suppression of dissent are hallmark features of a dictatorial regime.
Badridze also questioned whether Bidzina Ivanishvili's actions could truly be independent from coordination with Russian oligarchic and political circles. He warned that Georgia is losing international legitimacy — a development that plays into Russia's plan to render the country fully dependent on Moscow.
Giorgi Badridze:
'Until now, Bidzina Ivanishvili's government was described as authoritarian. Today, without exaggeration, we can call it a dictatorship. We are witnessing a situation where political opponents are being arrested en masse and all dissent is being suppressed. There is no more textbook definition of a dictatorship than what we are seeing now.
No matter how much we say that Russia and Georgia merely share overlapping interests, I find it hard to believe that there isn't also direct coordination. Ivanishvili has well-known ties to Russian oligarchic and political circles — there is no doubt about that.
Georgia is undergoing a process of 'Belarusisation', where anti-democratic actions undermine the regime's legitimacy, making it increasingly dependent on Russia. While in the past it could manoeuvre between Russia and the West, today it is forced to side with Russia in international disputes.'
I don't believe a long-term, stable dictatorship can be established in Georgia — but at this stage, the actions taken by Ivanishvili's regime fully align with Russia's plan. We are already in a situation where Georgia is losing its international legitimacy because of its government. This directly serves Russia's goal of making Georgia entirely dependent on it.
Figures within the Georgian regime are crossing political red lines at such speed that I cannot rule out the possibility that Salome Zurabishvili will also become a target — despite her being a French citizen. Mikheil Saakashvili is a Ukrainian citizen, and he is in prison.
One of the opposition's biggest problems is its inability to stick together. Someone even joked: 'They didn't want to be together — but they ended up sitting together.'
I wouldn't rule out that these repressions could reach Salome Zurabishvili as well. Whatever her role may have been in the previous political phase, the fact that today's parliamentary elections are no longer recognised by the West is, in part, down to Salome Zurabishvili.'
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