".....but a whimper."

They don't make Colour Revolutions like they used to

All the ingredients were there: a post-communist European country whose citizens want to join the EU, a government in power that is rather hesitant about doing so, accusations of Russian interference and control, calls for the country to join NATO, a land awash in foreign-funded NGOs, and most importantly, a national election which produced an outcome that has been contested by pro-western forces.

This is not going to be a long entry, and this is largely due to what has happened (or more accurately, what hasn’t happened) since election night in Georgia. Observers were anticipating the usual Colour Revolution playbook to be dusted off and put back into use over two weeks ago, but for the most part it has been nothing but silence. The Americans were busy with their own election night that took place shortly after Georgia’s, but Europe’s activity has been rather downbeat.

Greta Thunberg did make an appearance, but her stock has dipped in value due to her support for Palestinians in Gaza, something that creates distance between her and many of the financiers of the NGOs who were supposed to be raising hell in Tbilisi these past two weeks. To describe the reaction to the “fixed” election as “subdued” would be an understatement.

Georgia is no stranger to Colour Revolutions, with the Rose Revolution of 2003 being such a success that it served as a template for future attempts elsewhere:

The Rose Revolution managed to dethrone old Soviet fossil Eduard Shevardnadze from power, and yank the Caucasian country out of Russia’s orbit, turning it to the West, towards both the EU and NATO.

Western hopes were pinned on Georgia’s new President, Mikhail Saakashvili, to deliver his country on a plate to both NATO and the EU. Instead, personal hubris got in the way, and it led to Russian forces entering inner Georgian territory after Saakashvili’s army attempted to take back control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia. The American cavalry did not come to the rescue, Georgia was partitioned, and Saaskashvili was humiliated. To make matters worse, his rule became increasingly authoritarian and corrupt:

One of the most intriguing people at the recently concluded Munich Security Conference, the annual gathering of international relations nabobs from Europe, North America and elsewhere, was erstwhile Georgian President and Odessan Governor Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili is no longer president or governor of anything, and is also no longer a citizen of Georgia, but remains a fascinating figure, and a bit of a cautionary tale.

Saakashvili, for many years the darling of the west because of his record on fighting low-level corruption in Georgia and hawkish rhetoric towards Russia, usually delivered in near-native English, has had a rough few years since his party resoundingly lost a parliamentary election in Georgia in 2012, and he was then term-limited out of office in 2013. After leaving the presidency, Saakashvili, after a year or so, due to his relationship with Petro Poroshenko, who was elected president of Ukraine in 2014, became an adviser to the Ukrainian government and then governor of Ukraine’s Odessa oblast. However, the Saakashvili that took over Odessa was no longer the energetic reformer who changed Georgia so much and proved unable to accomplish much there.¹

From pro-Western NGO Transparency International (2019):

The Georgian opposition and local branches of foreign-funded NGOs pin the blame on their failure to win the election on billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, deaf to the fact that they are supported by foreign billionaire oligarchs themselves in their quest to turn Georgia to the West once again. What the Georgian government learned from the Rose Revolution was that it needed to clamp down on these NGOs, which is why legislation was passed this past August to specifically do so:

In May 2024, Georgia’s parliament voted to uphold a law labeling many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as foreign agents. Advocates of Georgian democracy fear that its implementation will bring the country closer to Russia and crush its hopes for future European Union (EU) accession, pushing it further down a path of illiberal reform.

Enacted on August 1, the law requires NGOs that receive 20 percent or more of their funding from abroad to officially register themselves as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” This would affect many of the roughly twenty-six thousand NGOs in Georgia; according to a 2020 report by the Asian Development Bank, Georgian civil society organizations receive more than 90 percent of their funding from abroad. Failure to register by September 1 could result in fines of up to $9,300.

NGOs are a neat way to do an end run around democracy. Furthermore, foreign NGOs are a way for ordinary Georgians to find employment with pay well above the average in that very poor country. Georgia has 26,000 NGOs that get funding from foreign sources, meaning that in a country of 3.76 million, there is a foreign-funded NGO for every 1 in 144 citizens. This law led the EU to suspend accession talks with Georgia, but the government was not cowed and passed the law over two months later.

Georgians do desire to join the EU, but not enough to topple the government. There is a long list of issues that Georgians have with these NGOs and the changes to Georgian culture and society that they have demanded be implemented in this conservative country. It’s this gap, along with the fear that the country could get dragged into another war with Russia should a pro-Western government take power, that has allowed the current ruling party, Georgia Dream, to plot a somewhat neutral course between the West and Moscow. Western countries insist that this is not the case, and the government is doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin, but this charge is to be expected from a collection of countries for whom there is no legitimate alternative to their own self-styled “liberal democracy”, a system that serves the interests of locals less and less these days.

What remains curious to me is just how “low energy” the demonstrations have been in Tbilisi. Reporting on events there has been almost entirely absent from English language Western media. A delegation of foreign policy committees from several European countries did visit on Monday for talks, but the government refused to meet them. Things are quite muted, and I can’t explain why this is the case. I am certain that no deal behind closed doors has been struck, because there is no room for one, and because these visiting Europeans are crying “foul!” about the results of the election. Is it fatigue? Or is it something else?

1. Al-Jazeera editorial from 2018