Natalie Sabanadze: Georgian Dream is Precipitating its Own Downfall
Georgia is not and has never been a fully consolidated institutional democracy. The separation of powers remains blurry, the system of checks and balances malfunctions, and the changes of power through the ballot box are the exception rather than the norm.

Ambassador Natalie Sabanadze is a Senior Research Fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Programme of Chatham House. From 2013 to 2021, she served as head of the Georgian mission to the EU and Ambassador of Georgia to the Kingdom of Belgium and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Consequently, the independent Georgian state has not served its people. Instead, it has been co-opted by a small circle of ruling elites who treat state institutions as instruments of their power. While the elites have changed over time —fortunately—the underlying pattern has persisted.
Despite all this, Georgia is a free country. It is a revolutionary democracy where popular resistance serves as the ultimate check on power. While ruling elites may succeed in capturing the state, they consistently fail to subjugate its citizens.
Georgia is a revolutionary democracy where popular resistance serves as the ultimate check on power.
Time and again, governments that overstay their welcome underestimate the democratic resilience of the Georgian people—a resilience that has only grown stronger over the years. Georgia’s present rulers wrongly conclude that because they are more in control and have more resources than their predecessors, they can hold onto power just a little longer. However, Georgians’ inherent mistrust and resistance to autocracy has become part of the popular political culture that rulers ignore at their peril.
Elections and escalation
Elections, whether free or stolen, are the ultimate test of a party’s popularity. The Georgian Dream (GD) understood better than anyone they were on the brink of losing their governing majority. The October parliamentary elections were not an exercise in democracy but a well-administered rescue operation for a party mired in a deepening moral and political crisis.
By manipulating the polls, the GD recognized that its grip on power was precarious. They knew the true threat to their authority came not from the battered political opposition but from civil resistance. As a result, they sought to complete the mission they had started with the passage of the Russian Law and destroy the flickering flames of civil liberties that sustained popular resistance. History had taught them that unless fully extinguished, these flames could grow into a fire that could leave them no passage for escape.
On November 28, the GD abandoned its three-year policy of declaring European integration a strategic priority while simultaneously pursuing a policy of strategic distancing from the EU. The fact that this would provoke protests was not just predictable but blatantly obvious, suggesting it was a deliberate move. The GD appeared to intentionally escalate the post-election crisis, which had been losing momentum with the aim of provoking unrest. They likely counted on the protests to be more violent, chaotic, and opposition-driven. This would have allowed them to present the situation as a Maidan-style revolution, justifying a heavy-handed response, ‘beheading’ the opposition and the active core of civil society. The swift resort to violence in the early days of the protests and frequent references to Maidan indicate that both the narrative and the response plan had been prepared in advance.
Ivanishvili and his cronies tried to outsmart the streetm but the things did not go quite as planned.
Ivanishvili and his cronies tried to outsmart the street. Their strategy was to provoke the protesters into a form of revolt that could be framed as an attempted coup d’état, thereby reclaiming legitimacy they failed to secure through elections.
However, things did not go quite as planned. The protests were not only peaceful but also popular, spontaneous, and grassroots-driven. The political opposition did not take the lead; in fact, it was largely sidelined. As a result, the heavy-handed response—reminiscent of Belarus—backfired. Instead of intimidating protesters and neutralizing political and civil opposition, it deepened the crisis, setting the party against the people. Most importantly, it derailed the GD’s quest for international recognition of its election victory.
Recalibrating response
In the days that followed, the Georgian Dream reassessed the situation, factoring in the widespread public backlash and mounting international pressure, and decided to shift its approach. They declared that the Georgian Maidan had been successfully averted, commended the law enforcement hierarchy for its “effective” use of violence, threw a large number of protesters in jail, and transitioned from an escalation to an entrenchment. Their new approach is to dig in, refuse concessions, activate the propaganda machinery, and wait out the protests.
This strategy hinges on the assumption that the protesters will eventually run out of steam and that the international community, reluctant to cede Georgia entirely to Russian influence, will gradually re-engage with the de facto government. To facilitate this re-engagement, the GD has signaled its willingness to revisit and amend the so-called Russian Law.
The expansion of sanctions to target “enablers”—including businesses and propaganda networks—could deal a blow the regime may find difficult to endure.
However, this strategy has been disrupted by U.S. sanctions. There is reason to believe that the GD underestimated the likelihood of such decisive action from the outgoing U.S. administration. They likely anticipated that the power transition in the White House would buy them enough time to reset relations with the incoming Trump administration, aided by their lobbyists.
But the persistent popular resistance, combined with the GD’s intransigence and escalating anti-Western rhetoric, prompted the United States to double down on pressure. The potential expansion of sanctions to target “enablers”—including businesses and propaganda networks—could deal a significant blow to the regime, one that it may find increasingly difficult to endure.
At the precipice
Forty days into the protests, the two sides remain locked in a battle of wills. While the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of violence against protesters has subsided (but occasionally flares up), the GD has shifted tactics. They are now punishing dissent by keeping hundreds of protesters imprisoned and dismissing civil servants en masse. This, too, may backfire as the protest movement is taking on additional social and justice dimensions.
For instance, mothers of young protesters who have been jailed and whose lives are being shattered by the regime are organizing and may amplify their voices. Similarly, dismissed civil servants and their families, treated unjustly, could become more visible and vocal, while the move to create an independent civil service trade union may create a lasting foundation for collective legal action.
The fight for justice is a powerful mobilizing force that could expand as well as deepen the resistance movement. Moreover, if the U.S., U.K., and other EU member states impose harsher sanctions on the regime’s close circle of enablers, the situation could reach a tipping point. The longer the GD remains entrenched, the more costly it will become for domestic and external patrons to keep supporting it.
The fight for justice is a powerful mobilizing force that could expand as well as deepen the resistance movement.
Ivanishvili’s regime already suffers from a lack of domestic legitimacy to govern and insufficient external recognition to function effectively as a government. This spells trouble on all fronts, including for its allies in Budapest, Moscow, or Baku.
Russia values the GD as long as it demonstrates its ability to maintain control and power—not as a lame-duck political force in constant need of external support. Without effective capability to govern, the GD’s utility to Moscow is significantly diminished. The same applies to regional partners like Azerbaijan and Turkey, who have recognized and supported the GD. They, too, may find that investing political capital in a declining political force is not a wise strategy.
For the GD, turning things around quickly is essential; otherwise, its position may quickly crumble. On the other hand, the protest movement’s strategy should focus on maximizing the costs for the GD and undermining its claim of being in effective control of the country. The GD should not be dictating scenarios but rather responding to those set by the protesters and their international supporters.
The views and opinions expressed in the Civil.ge guest analysis are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Civil.ge editorial team.