Georgian Dream Seeks to Ban the Opposition

On October 13, Georgia’s Constitutional Court took up Georgian Dream’s lawsuit to outlaw five opposition parties. Hearings opened in Batumi on October 21, with a ruling due by June 24, 2027. Georgian society is fractured along geopolitical, ideological, and generational lines, which the government exploits. Wartime trauma, Russia’s occupation of 20 percent of the country, an influential Orthodox Church, and Kremlin-aligned disinformation deepen these rifts. Public opinion favors a European future anchored in Orthodox identity, with 71 percent backing EU accession and 82 percent identifying as Orthodox.

Georgia’s political crisis entered a new stage this month. On October 13, the plenary session of the Constitutional Court agreed to hear Georgian Dream’s lawsuit to ban the United National Movement, the Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia – Lelo, the Federalists, and Gakharia for Georgia (Constitutional Court of Georgia; Caucasian Knot, October 13). Hearings opened in Batumi on October 21 and resumed on October 26, and the court must rule by June 24, 2027 (JAMnews, October 24). The opposition has announced a protest campaign under the slogan “Georgia without Ivanishvili,” running from October 25 to November 28 (Caucasian Knot, October 15).

Brussels has responded with mounting alarm. On October 8, the European Parliament adopted its seventh critical resolution on Georgia. It condemns the attempt to outlaw opposition parties and calls for sanctions on Georgian Dream Honorary Chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, Georgian Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili, and Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze (European Parliament, October 8).

The attempt to remove the opposition through the courts shows that the foreign-policy dispute has become a contest over what kind of state Georgia is. Whichever vision of national identity prevails will decide whether Georgia stays in European space or becomes a hybrid regime orbiting Moscow.

Georgian society is divided by three deep fault lines. The first separates supporters of the West from those who favor distance from Brussels and an amicable line toward Moscow. A survey conducted in January–February of this year under the EU Neighbours East program found that 71 percent back EU accession and 79 percent think membership brings more benefit than harm (EU NeighboursEast, June 18). The government, however, frames geopolitical alignment as a struggle over cultural sovereignty, mobilizing social conservatism to legitimize its political choices. By conflating European integration with threats to national identity, it deepens polarization and narrows the space for public debate.

The second fault line runs between liberal democracy and a conservative-traditionalist agenda. The government casts Europe as a source of “imposed” values that endanger family and faith. It continues to warn of a non-existent “global war party” seeking to drag Georgia into conflict with Russia (European Digital Media Observatory, October 14, 2024).

The third fault line is generational, reflecting contrasting perceptions of political stability, national sovereignty, and geopolitical risk. Older Georgians, who remember the wars, unrest, and the collapse of the state in the 1990s, are more receptive to “peace at any price” and prioritize security and the avoidance of renewed conflict. Younger people, raised in an independent country, associate European integration with democratic governance, individual freedoms, and long-term national development. They treat Europe as the default and form the backbone of the protests.

Since 2024, several developments have widened these divides. The foreign agent law, passed over mass protests, produced the first open collision between two visions of the country (Matsne, June 3, 2024). On November 28, 2024, the government suspended EU accession talks until the end of 2028 (Georgia Today, November 28, 2024; see EDM, December 6, 10). Daily protests began that night, demanding new elections and the release of political prisoners. Security forces have answered with tear gas, water cannons, brutal beatings, physical and psychological violence, detentions, and thousands of administrative cases (Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, 2025).

The government’s equivocal stance on the war against Ukraine has sharpened these divisions. In August, Kobakhidze wrote that the “global war party” needed the war to stoke Russophobia among its “agents” worldwide, including in Georgia. He called the opposition’s anti-Russian stance insincere and directed by “external forces” (JAMnews, August 4). This narrative shifts attention away from the main threat, Russia, and recasts criticism as a campaign by the opposition, media, and nongovernmental organizations to destabilize the country and drag it into war with Russia. Once a foreign enemy is swapped for a domestic one, society loses a shared vocabulary for discussing security.

Three powerful forces sustain these divisions. The first is the legacy of the post-Soviet wars and Russian occupation. Georgian identity took shape amid unfinished state-building. The wars lost in the 1990s in the Russian-backed breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the 2008 war with Russia, made territorial integrity the nation’s defining trauma. Russia occupies about 20 percent of Georgia, and both camps use that fact. The opposition argues that because Russia is an occupier, a Western course is the only option. The government turns the same memory against its critics—fear of a repeat of 2008 is among its most potent emotional levers and explains why some voters choose “calm” over risk.

The second is the Georgian Orthodox Church, whose Patriarchate is the country’s most influential non-state institution. Eighty-two percent of Georgians identify as Orthodox Christians (1TV, June 22). Georgian Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II, who led the Georgian Church from 1977, moved it from the margins to the core of national identity and was trusted across society. Ilia II’s death on March 17 opened a period of uncertainty for the Church (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, March 18). On May 11, the Holy Synod elected Metropolitan Shio Mujiri as Catholicos-Patriarch Shio III, with 22 of 39 votes (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, May 11). Shio III spent years in Moscow, where he led the Georgian community and studied the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church (JAMnews, May 11). The Patriarchate is neither unambiguously pro-Russian nor unambiguously pro-European. The Church’s continued refusal to recognize the Ukrainian Church’s autocephaly, however, is telling of its deference to Moscow (JAMnews, April 23, 2022). Because its large congregation carries the Patriarchate’s messages to much of the population, this ambiguity turns faith from a source of unity into a contested arena.

The third force is information warfare. Georgia’s media landscape is deeply polarized. Pro-government channels depict the West as an absurd “deep state” hostile to national interests, while opposition outlets portray the government as a Kremlin proxy (Radio Tavisufleba, April 24, 2025; Georgia Today, August 21). Russian disinformation and misinformation operations in Georgia work largely by amplifying existing domestic narratives (Institute for Development of Freedom of Information, July 14). Since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Russian propaganda has warmed noticeably toward Georgian Dream, and Kremlin and Georgian government narratives have converged (JAMnews, October 10, 2025). The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, a Georgian election watchdog, found that a Russian Facebook network and the Georgian-language site of the Russian outlet Pravda spread the same claim as pro-government media, namely that Western funds were financing destabilization in Georgia (International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, August 6, 2025). Together, these narratives blur the line between external manipulation and domestic politics.

The drive to ban opposition parties is an effort to lock in a single vision of the country by legal means. Banning parties, however, deepens the rift rather than removes it. The protest movement has no single center and brings together students, activists, former parliamentary parties, and the diaspora. Accusations of radicalism against part of the opposition have given the authorities a pretext to tighten pressure. The protest movement endures because it rests on identity, not party structure. Young people take to the streets because they see themselves as Europeans, not because they follow a leader.

Which mindset dominates once the turmoil subsides will set the country’s direction. Two scenarios are conceivable. The first is a Russian orbit, or so-called “managed sovereignty,” in which the government uses the courts, the Patriarchate, and information control to cement peace at the cost of giving up the West. This is an artificial trade-off, as one does not exclude the other. In the short run, this scenario is plausible, given a repressive apparatus, a splintered opposition, public exhaustion, and the framing of the “liberal project” as a foreign agenda. It rests on fear rather than consent and is brittle, since the desire for Europe has not faded under pressure.

The second scenario is liberal restoration, in which protests force concessions, and a pro-European course returns in its earlier, liberal form. Europe remains the civilizational and economic compass, while Orthodox Christianity and national memory are seen as inseparable parts of Georgian identity, with no clash between them. This scenario rests on genuine sentiment, as 71 percent of the population supports EU accession, and 82 percent identify as Orthodox Christians. This combination dissolves the false choice of “Europe or faith.” This is a pragmatic, realistic outcome that is neither pro-Russian, nor post-Soviet, nor uncritically pro-Western.

Georgia’s identity crisis mirrors a wider post-Soviet dilemma of how a small country between rival world orders can keep its agency. The legacy of the Soviet collapse, the trauma of wars and occupation, the power of a religious institution, and information warfare all bear on society’s choices at once. These dynamics interact with divergent interpretations of national sovereignty and tensions between domestic political priorities and external geopolitical orientations. Georgia’s political identity therefore remains contested, as society searches for a strategic direction while struggling to reconcile competing visions of its future.

In the coming weeks, the Constitutional Court proceedings and the opposition’s protest campaign will be critical. If the ban goes through, the divide will deepen and protests will likely intensify. If the court rejects or stalls it, society gains room for dialogue. Either way, the long-term course will be set neither by a court ruling, nor by Brussels, nor by Moscow, but by the political identity Georgian society is forging amid profound internal tensions. All signs point to a mindset that refuses to give up on Europe and sees it as a civilization to which Georgia belongs. Whether that orientation prevails will depend on society’s resilience and its ability to translate European aspirations into a coherent and peaceful political vision.

https://jamestown.org/georgian-dream-seeks-to-ban-the-opposition