October 26, 2025, marks the first anniversary of the start of Georgia’s latest constitutional crisis. Beginning with an irregular election that saw the ruling Georgian Dream party win by a landslide, allegedly garnering 54.8 percent of the vote, many believe that double voting, vote buying, intimidation, and physical violence at polling stations contributed to this outcome.
Georgia has maintained its status as a hybrid democracy for the past decade. Its political parties have experienced difficulty finding stable ideologies; the shift of Georgian Dream being a prominent example. The anti-Western party centralizes around the richest man in Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is considered by some to be the nation’s now “unaccountable and unchecked” ruler, as he holds no official role. Having ruled on and off since 2012, the party has shifted from EU integrationist policies and social issues towards appropriating conservative narratives. According to Salome Kandelaki, Junior Policy Analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics, while slandering the opposition with negative messaging is not new for Georgian Dream, this time around, “this fear is based on the paradigm of war and peace, with Georgian Dream trying to present itself as the only guarantee of peace in the country.”
Beyond the October elections, some point to April 2024 as the beginning of Georgia’s democratic backsliding. The government overruled the then-president — who is currently disputing her removal, Salomé Zourabichvili— and passed the law “On Transparency of Foreign Influence”. The legislation requires non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from foreign sources to register as organizations promoting the interests of foreign powers. It allows the Ministry of Justice to solicit large amounts of data and fine NGOs for noncompliance. The legislation has been considered an early step in Georgia’s movement towards alignment with Russia and the Kremlin. The ruling party denies this allegation.
The move has been considered by many as a departure from the West and toward alignment with Russia, with whom Georgia shared a complicated history. Georgia was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, and Russia continues to occupy 20 percent of its territory since the Russo-Georgian War of 2008. Tens of thousands of people remain displaced within Georgia’s borders due to Russia’s outright violation of the 2008 ceasefire agreement. As of 2023, accession, or becoming a member state of the European Union, was supported by nearly 80 percent of Georgians. This process was also supported by the Georgian Dream party until the most recent election. The European Union (EU) has stated that its accession negotiations with Georgia will be halted as long as the Transparency law remains in effect, and Georgian Dream has announced that they will suspend progress towards accession until at least 2028.
In an interview, Zourabichvili explained her outlook on the elections:
“There are so many efforts devoted to support Ukraine and avoid that Ukraine falls into the hands militarily of Russia. Russia did not succeed in more than 3 1/2 years, but now it’s succeeding in Georgia in a much more silent way with [a] proxy government. … They are recognizing, I think, internally, not outside, that this military all-out aggression policy is very costly to Russia and not very effective – and they’re testing in Georgia an alternative policy. Rigged elections, a proxy government, growing influence economically and also financially.”
In objection to the deterioration of their democracy, young people across Georgia, and especially within the capital city of Tbilisi, have taken to the streets in protest, day and night. Despite largely peaceful gatherings, protesters have been met with tear gas, water cannons, and hundreds of arrests. In the last two weeks of November 2024 alone, four hundred protesters were arrested, and nearly 100 people are facing criminal charges or have already been imprisoned since the October 2024 elections. Security forces have also been accused of torturing detainees.
In the aftermath of the fateful October 2024 election, opposition parties chose to boycott their 61 seats in the Georgian Parliament in an effort to refuse its legitimacy. A year later, the protests have fizzled out while the West continues to debate whether to impose sanctions or not. The United States and European Union currently do not formally recognize the Georgian Dream government. Visas for travel to the U.S. have been blacklisted for twenty actors accused of undermining democracy in Georgia. In a turn of events on October 20, 2025, one party, For Georgia, announced it would suspend the boycott and return to its seats in Parliament, reinforcing its presence in the country’s political sphere.
On October 5, 2025, protesters stormed the presidential palace. This occurred while tens of thousands of anti-Georgian Dream, pro-democracy protesters gathered in Tbilisi after the Georgian Dream party claimed to have won a majority in all municipalities in the October 4, 2025, elections. The opposition is disputing this claim as false.
As a result of the storming, the current prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, announced a major crackdown on protesters following the event: “…No one will remain unpunished. We have far more resources to identify perpetrators than we did last year or the year before… The law will act very strictly towards them.”
Authorities have started utilizing surveillance technology to fine protesters. One protestor was fined 56 times for allegedly blocking a road; failing to pay them could land him in jail. Five Georgian opposition leaders were charged with attempting a coup. This follows the jailing of eight other leaders for earlier refusing to cooperate with a parliamentary inquiry. Opposition offices have also been raided and attacked. These charges could result in the leaders being imprisoned for up to nine years. The protest called for a “peaceful revolution” against Georgian Dream.
As NGOs are also being cracked down upon, fighting the Georgian Dream grows more and more difficult. Seven rights groups had their funds frozen. Guram Imnadze of the Social Justice Center, a group whose funds were frozen, stated that the government’s goal is to “stop all the independent actors in the country, to limit or shrink democratic free spaces in the country, [and] make independent actors such as NGOs, media outlets or individual activists unable to support democracy.”
Additionally, certain groups’ rights are starting to be restricted. Georgian Dream proposed and passed a sweeping anti-LGBTQ bill into law in October 2024. The bill mirrors similar laws in Russia, which outlaw depictions of non-heterosexual relationships.
Through intimidation, violence, and political power, the Georgian Dream party is quickly dismantling the democracy Georgians have spent the last thirty years fighting to build.
Edited by Jamie Silverman
Disclaimer: This is an article written by a Staff Writer. Catalyst is a student-led platform that fosters engagement with global issues from a learning perspective. The opinions expressed above do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication.
