A number of virus-ravaged nations across the world have already started to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination. Many governments have encountered serious difficulties in managing the process. Despite the government’s promises, Georgians, living through the second lockdown, are left guessing as to when exactly the…

The October 31 parliamentary elections were bound to be controversial. After all, they came about after a bitter contest and a painful compromise between the ruling Georgian Dream and the multi-striped opposition camp that united to demand more proportional representation. The respectable polling ahead of…

With almost two million votes tallied, the results of the October 31 parliamentary election show the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) with 48.23%. This is the first time the ruling party lays its claim on governing the country for the third consecutive term since the country…

What is happening? On October 31, Georgia elects the tenth convocation of the Georgian Parliament, which, according to the recently passed changes, will consist of 120 lawmakers elected through proportional-party lists and 30 majoritarian deputies (change from 77/73 ratio), while the election threshold will be…

As hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh continue, Azerbaijan’s military push towards the decisive strategic objective – the corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. It is likely, that Azerbaijan will continue to capture by force the five provinces mentioned in the “Madrid Principles” of settlement agreed in 2009. This…

What’s happening: The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia opened a probe against two civil servants working at the Foreign Ministry and the Border Police, accusing them of conspiring to cede lands to Azerbaijan while being the members of the state commission on the delimitation of borders.…

As the year wanes, the political context around Georgia is changing. Mass protests in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, in Russia’s far-east, spread a breeze of transformation across the post-Soviet neighborhood. Festering regional conflagration also deeply changes the balance of power, creeping ever closer to Georgia –…

By Jelger Groeneveld, analyst, foreign policy advisor in a Dutch liberal party This week ruling Georgian Dream announced it would seek to suspend state funding to political parties that continue their boycott of Parliament, by proposing the introduction of a bill to that effect. So…

Several years ago, when Serge Sarkisian became Armenia’s president, many Armenian friends of mine would remark, half-jokingly “its not Armenia that captured Karabakh, it is Karabakh that took over Armenia.” Indeed, many important positions in Yerevan were held by those who came from that region…

Yesterday’s agreement on the secession of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, signed by Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia is a victory for Azerbaijan as well as for its ally in this conflict, Turkey. And while Armenia is on the losing side, if its elite proves its mettle, the…

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” The rise of Russia’s disinformation campaign in Georgia coincides with the country’s ongoing integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions. To derail Georgia from its path, Russia will most likely interfere in the upcoming parliamentary elections.…

Georgia has been striving for its European future since the very first day of independence. Shared values and positive dynamics in our relations made us strategic partners with the EU. The EU is an important contributor to the security and economic and democratic development of…

Author: Timothy Blauvelt, Full Professor, Ilia State University When the current COVID-19 pandemic began early this spring, many countries closed their borders and restricted entry to foreigners. In nearly all such cases, legal residents are treated as citizens for purposes of entry, allowed to return…

Georgia’s current efforts to counter disinformation are neither tactical nor farsighted enough to reverse the long-term damage sowed by disinformation. Author: Caroline Sutcliffe is an award-winning media manager, political analyst and disinformation expert with with more than a decade of experience in Georgia and the…

By Peter Wiebler, USAID/Georgia Mission Director Over nearly 30 years, the United States and Georgia have built a partnership based on shared values, common strategic interests, and the mutual benefits of cooperation. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been key to the…

As the deadlines for legal disputes for Georgia’s October 31 parliamentary elections have passed and the CEC summarized the first-round results on November 13, Civil.ge approached key election watchdogs to reflect on the appeal process. The watchdogs, that have appealed the violations both in District…

The National Democratic Institute (NDI), a U.S-funded non-profit with a long history of watching elections in Georgia, released a report of the Virtual Elections Analysis Team on November 2, stating that “irregularities in results protocols, widespread reports of potentially intimidating behavior in or around polling…

ODIHR LEOM has been dispatched to Georgia for some six weeks now. You have been observing the processes in lead up to October 31 vote, as well as Election Day. To what extent did Georgia’s conduct of elections adhere the OSCE commitments? As we said…

The Georgian opposition parties reject the results of October 31 parliamentary elections and refuse to enter the new parliament. To reflect on the opposition’s decision we asked foreign pundits: All opposition parties that crossed the election threshold announced that they would boycott the new parliament.…

1,970,540 voters cast their ballots in Georgia’s October 31 parliamentary elections, accounting for 56.11% of the total number of voters. As polling stations have closed nationwide at 20:00 and vote counting and tabulation are underway, Civil.ge asked key local CSOs that have dispatched hundreds of observers on…

The policy towards Russian occupation and the Moscow-backed regions of Tskhinvali and Abkhazia has been a burden for Georgian governments for decades, considering many blocks and impasses the question entails. It did barely make any headlines in the context of October 31 parliamentary elections, however.…