Georgia goes to polls: Choice between Russia and democratic EU

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00:00Georgia is heading to the polls this Saturday in a high-stakes parliamentary election seen as a

00:04choice between Russia and the EU. A union of pro-Western opposition forces will face off

00:10against the ruling party, which has been accused of aligning with Moscow and steering the country

00:15away from its long-standing hopes for EU membership. For more, we can bring in Marika

00:20Mikiashvili, a member of Coalition for Change from the DROA party. Thank you so much for joining us

00:26on the program. I'd like to begin by asking just how big are the stakes in this election?

00:34Hello, I'm very glad to be here with you. Well, the stakes are existential. It's absolutely

00:40decisive elections for us. It's a choice between going back onto the Russian orbit or a democratic

00:48European free future. For us Georgians, European choice has always been historical,

00:53civilizational, and we want to return to our European family where we think we belong,

01:00and the government denies us that opportunity. So, this is the last elections where we can

01:09defeat them through elections. If they still manage to cling to power, there will not be

01:14any elections left in the country, and it will become full dictatorship. But I have good news

01:20now. We are cautiously optimistic and poised to win thanks to the high turnout and the opinion

01:28polls and the atmosphere in the run-up to elections and today as well. And how can this

01:34election decide the country's future path in Europe? Well, when we win these elections,

01:43and as I said, we are absolutely poised to win, then the opposition coalition government,

01:50we will immediately launch these reforms, judicial, police reforms, and others that are

01:56outlined by the Georgian president's Georgian charter, and that is the roadmap and framework

02:03to launch reforms that are necessary for Georgia to have EU accession talks opened. So,

02:10among the opposition parties, we have this big umbrella agreement on what to do in order to

02:18obtain negotiation talks with the European Union. And the president, who is, by the way, French-born,

02:24had a very pivotal role in that. Now, a lot's at stake, obviously, for Georgia, but this election

02:31is also of high importance for Europe and Russia as well, isn't it? Yes, of course. It's very

02:39important for the entire region of Eastern Europe, and particularly Armenia, by the way,

02:44because Georgia is Armenia's only land connection to European Union and European aspirations,

02:50basically. And now, with Armenia procuring French weapons for defense, if Georgia is

02:57fully put on Russian orbit, we might simply not allow these shipments to Armenia. But also,

03:04more broadly, we had huge protests against this foreign agents law this year. And if,

03:10despite this unprecedented public mobilization and Western support for the people of Georgia,

03:16this illiberal government wins with their illiberal legislation, we will have autocrats

03:23and wannabe autocrats in especially EU enlargement area encouraged to do the same.

03:29And there are already cases, for example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, the

03:34pro-Russian Serbian separatist president of one of the entities in Bosnia, he's also supposed to

03:42adopt this foreign agents law. And he's now waiting for what political cost the Georgian

03:47dream will pay. And one more thing. This is the last government in Georgia that Russia controls,

03:54absolutely, because through new electoral laws in Georgia, no single party will be able

04:01to have outright majority. And even this government, the Georgian dream, they never

04:08came as pro-Russian force. In Georgia, everyone in the country is absolutely consolidated

04:14about our European choice. 85% plus of people want European integration. That is why they were

04:23never elected as a pro-Russian force. They unmasked themselves as pro-Russians only lately,

04:30after they captured the entire state. And when Russia's invasion in Ukraine opened the window

04:38of opportunity for Georgia to actually proceed with European integration, and they had to make

04:43specific tangible choices. So after they are gone, Russians have no more political, social,

04:51cultural foothold in the country. This is the last Russian government in Georgia

04:56that we will be defeating today. And lastly, we've been hearing that there have been

05:02disinformation narratives that have circulated during the election campaign.

05:06Could you expand on what these are and how much of a concern or not this is?

05:12Well, yes, there have been several disinformation narratives. The narrative that the opposition

05:18will start war with Russia, that the anti-LGBT narrative that the European Union imposes LGBT

05:27issues upon Georgia, and a lot of different things. But no single narrative really worked

05:33for them. They needed to try out several narratives, but overall, people do not really

05:39trust them anymore. These narratives do not penetrate majority of the public. You know what

05:45the main promise of the government is before the elections? That they will ban opposition parties.

05:53Their main pre-election promise is to ban opposition parties and declare us all unconstitutional

05:59as a revenge against the previous government who they unseated 12 years ago. They had 12 years

06:08to offer something to the public, but they have nothing to offer other than prosecuting us all.

06:15All right, Marika Mikiashvili, thank you very much indeed for sharing your

06:18views with us here on the program. Thank you very much. Thank you.

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