It’s been a bad few months for democracy. Election results offensive to the European Union were annulled in Romania; an attempted coup occurred in Georgia over elections that didn’t go the way the west wanted; the French government, widely hated, teetered over the abyss as president Emmanual Macron tried to ignore the last election; on December 16, Washington’s pet German government fell; lots of funny-business happened in the Moldovan referendum and election, amid widespread disenfranchisement of Moldovan voters living in Russia; elections were long ago cancelled in dictatorial Ukraine; and South Korea hosted an attempted coup. In short, western democracies’ storied enchantment with elections is over. As western populations grow sick and tired of their political class and vote against it, what are elites to do? Annul, cancel, overturn and ignore the elections, that’s what. The problem, for the west, is the voters.
What will happen if far-right Alternative for Deutschland sweeps the early German elections in February, or if far-left France Insoumise does the same in France? Will the U.S. through its NATO and EU tentacles annul those votes? Don’t think it won’t try. And Washington doesn’t even have to give the order, because its European puppets know exactly what’s expected of them. Granted, the Romanian front-runner, so feared by NATO, Calin Georgescu, was far right. But so what? Besides, I doubt that’s what led to the constitutional court vacating the vote. More likely it was his opposition to the Ukraine War – hence the court citing “foreign influence” (translation: Russian) via TikTok as its flimsy basis for negating the election. Incidentally, reports are coming in that the heat and internet to Georgescu’s house have been cut off, and, surprise! he can’t get anyone on the phone to help with this.
But you can’t blame European honchos for ditching elections. They’re just following Washington’s lead. After all, the post-2016 phony Russiagate hysteria may not have succeeded in ousting Trump, as was intended, but it did provide the template for American vassals. The four years of lawfare against Trump (and then another four after he left office) blazed the trail for Europe, so that now, if a candidate not favored by political bigwigs wins, all they have to do is scream “Russian influence!” to dump the election. In other words, democracy is dying in the west. It’s kicking the bucket in Europe – and if Trump ends the Ukraine War (provided Biden doesn’t utterly sabotage his peace efforts before he takes office) or gets us out of the NATO sinkhole, you can bet your paycheck the 2028 establishment campaign will dust off the 2016 playbook and get right to work.
In western media, Georgescu has been portrayed as an unknown. This is false. He is well-known in Romania and had a diplomatic career. But he is also a religious nationalist, and that’s verboten in the EU; worse yet, the U.S., aka NATO, built its biggest military airbase in Europe – where? You got it, Romania. So Washington can’t have just anybody running that country. It must be someone who will keep everything copacetic with the U.S. A nationalist opposed to Washington’s pet proxy war in Ukraine is not that someone.
As for Georgia, there the electorate proved itself most unreliable to the Exceptional Empire. It voted in a government that actually dares to require foreign NGOs to register as such – you know, the way we do, here in the United States. But here, those NGOs don’t aim to overthrow the government, like they do in Georgia, in order for Tbilisi to open a second front against Moscow. Indeed, the vast majority of rioters against the Georgian government, who were arrested, were – I’m shocked! Shocked! – foreign, i.e. European. The icing on the cake is that the French president of Georgia refused to leave office when her term expired – a president with French and Georgian passports, who boasts Nazis in her family tree.
The EU finagled things more successfully in Moldova. That nation’s October 20 referendum on joining the EU won – kinda. In country, the Moldovan government only snagged 50 percent of the vote, but Moldovan expats in Europe gave it a boost, while the 400,000 Moldovans living in Russia found, to their dismay, only two polling stations open for them, by their government, in Moscow. That meant as few as 10,000 of them got to vote. And as East European expert and political scientist Ivan Katchanovski tweeted October 21, many pro-Russian citizens in Transdniestria could not vote. So all in all, the Moldovan referendum was a sorry excuse for a democratic exercise. Then there was also Moldova’s presidential election, equally compromised. But hey, Washington’s EU vassal got to lure a country out of Russia’s orbit, and that’s all that counts, not mere democracy, right? After all, Washington doesn’t stand for democracy. It stands for and has long stood for something quite different – power. Just look at it backing a terrorist takeover of Syria, among them a ruler on whose head Washington has a $10,000,000 bounty. Let that sink in. One American hand posts a huge reward for a terrorist, while the other hand paves his way to power. The obvious conclusion (also obvious to any student of American-backed coups and regime changes abroad going back at least 70 years) is that U.S. doesn’t stand for anything besides power (certainly not anything as antiquated and nettlesome as international law). That’s the definition of a gangster state.
If you doubt that, just peek at South Korea, where the CIA’s man, president Yoon Suk Yeol, faced a grim electoral future. The voters were unlikely to support him in the next election, given that they mostly back the opposition. And that opposition, per Col. Douglas Macgregor, wants a Korean four-star general, not an American one, to head the roughly 500,000 Korean armed forces and also wants to boot the 30,000 U.S. troops off the peninsula. This, of course, goes over in Washington with all the joy of a root canal.
So what to do? Yoon took the bull by the horns December 3 with martial law. During the few hours when it looked like our man in Seoul had pulled off a coup, the Biden gang was coyly silent. But there is nothing enduring in this world, as Gogol noted, and even the most brazen attempts at subverting democracy occasionally fail. The opposition gathered and voted against Yoon. His defense minister was deposed, jailed and attempted suicide, and Yoon’s own tenure came now, ahem, under a cloud, to say the least, as insurrection charges loomed, and he was impeached and suspended from office.
And don’t forget France, where Macron, affronted by an EU parliament vote last summer that installed many anti-Ukraine War representatives, totally lost it and, quite idiotically and hubristically, called snap elections. He promptly lost those to the left, but then snubbed the voters by breaking with tradition and refusing to appoint a left-wing prime minister. Surprising no one, the center-rightist he chose received a vote of no confidence, and Macron’s government looked likely to fall. That was temporarily forestalled by the appointment, December 13, of a centrist prime minister. But if his government does ultimately crash, expect Macron to do something really stupid, like suspend the legislature, call a national emergency or, a la Yoon, declare martial law.
Lastly of course we have Ukraine, that shining example of democracy, where its president rules illegally, having cancelled elections, banned the opposition, throttled the press, exiled the church, jailed anyone he doesn’t like and press-ganged thousands of vehemently objecting Ukrainian men into the military. All this while ferociously lining his pockets with western, mainly American, funds. This is the tyranny upon which Biden bestows hundreds of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars. It’s not even supported by Ukrainians, most of whom, according to recent polls, want the war over. But Joe “War Is My Legacy” Biden, in his crazed enthusiasm for Ukrainian combat, just won’t stop. On December 11, Ukraine fired six ATACAMS into Russia. We can all thank God they did little damage, since the Russians shot two down and diverted four with electronic warfare. Had they inflicted real harm, we in the west might very well have had worse troubles than the death of democracy, namely death itself. Biden appears oblivious to this reality. For us, what’s at stake is life itself, and the whole, wondrous human and natural world. For him, it appears to be just another step on the path of endless war, another day, another dollar.
Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest novel is Booby Prize. She can be reached at her website.
December 21, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | European Union, France, Georgia, Korea, Moldova, Romania, United States |
Leave a comment
Georgia has prevented an attempted overthrow of the government orchestrated by foreign powers, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has said. He compared the scenario allegedly prepared for the nation with the situation in Ukraine in 2014.
Speaking on Monday, Kobakhidze referred to the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev a decade ago, which ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, and precipitated the current conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
“It took the [Georgian] Ministry of Internal Affairs exactly five days to neutralize the resource of violence of the radical opposition,” Kobakhidze said at a cabinet meeting, thanking the head of the ministry, Vakhtang Gomelauri, and police officers.
He added that the ministry had acted in accordance with standards “higher than the American and European ones.”
“This is how the attempt of Maidan in our country was stopped in exactly five days,” Kobakhidze concluded.
The Georgian capital, Tbilisi, has been rocked by anti-government and pro-EU rallies since late November, when Kobakhidze announced that the country would halt negotiations on potential accession to the bloc until 2028, citing “blackmail and manipulation” from EU officials. Brussels has since imposed personal sanctions against members of the Georgian government.
Protestors have repeatedly clashed with law enforcement, shot fireworks, and thrown Molotov cocktails at riot police, who have deployed tear gas and water cannons in an effort to disperse the demonstrators.
December 9, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | European Union, Georgia |
Leave a comment
By Lucas Leiroz | December 2, 2024
The West is increasingly intervening in Georgia’s internal affairs. In an attempt to prevent progress of the Parliament’s diplomatic, pro-peace agenda, Western countries are funding extremely violent protests, which have resulted in a serious social crisis. There is clearly an intention on the part of the West to overthrow the legitimate government in the country and establish a pro-NATO junta, as happened in Ukraine in 2014.
The Georgian capital Tbilisi is gradually looking like an actual civil war scenario. Radical militants are attacking the police and trying to destroy government buildings in protest against the policies of the Georgia Dream party – which won the parliamentary elections and has implemented a series of conservative and nationalist reforms.
Georgian Dream has been unfairly accused of being “pro-Russian” simply because it has prioritized Georgian national interests over Western interventionist agendas. Among the main measures of the Georgian Dream are the imposition of restrictions on the work of foreign NGOs, the freezing of negotiations for accession to the EU until 2028 and the banning of Western-backed anti-Russian sanctions. Obviously, the EU and NATO are disappointed with the Georgian political administration, doing everything possible to allow a regime change.
The West has a special interest in Georgia because the country has a recent history of military conflict with the Russian Federation. The West is lobbying for Tbilisi to resume hostilities in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in an attempt to “regain” the breakaway republics – which would allow a second front to be opened in NATO’s proxy war against Russia, facilitating the Western strategy. Despite international pressure, the Parliament has resisted and avoided engaging in any conflict, then being strongly condemned by the pro-Western lobbyists behind the Georgian political opposition.
“To summarize, Georgian Dream refused to open a “second front” against Russia in summer 2023 to assist Ukraine’s doomed counteroffensive, which was unforgiveable from the West’s perspective. Georgia’s geostrategic importance also spiked after the West “poached” Armenia from Russia’s “sphere of influence” since it then became indispensable for furthering their plans there [in the Caucasus]. Georgian Dream is too patriotic to become their puppet, however, and that’s why they now consider it to be their enemy,” American political analyst Andrew Korybko commented on the case.
As a result of this process, the Western project of a color revolution in Georgia is intensifying. Mass protests have been called by special agitators at the service of foreign intelligence, leading to violent demonstrations. Ukrainian and NATO flags and symbols are common on the streets, and protesters often sing Ukrainian nationalist anthems and songs – which shows clearly the real ideology of the Georgian dissidents, as well as who their international supporters are.
As well known, the main leader of the Georgian opposition is the country’s French-born president, Salome Zourabishvili. A former French ambassador to Tbilisi, Zourabishvili became a Georgian citizen after the 2003 Color Revolution, later becoming the president and the country’s leading pro-EU lobbyist. Zourabishvili now refuses to recognize the results of the recent Georgian elections and says she will not retire after her term ends.
There is a serious polarization in Georgia between Zourabishvili and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakzhidze. While the head of parliament advocates a sovereigntist and conservative policy, the French-born president is the main representative of Western interests in Georgia and is currently the main public figure behind the riots that threaten the country’s national security.
“I am so proud of you! I am proud of Georgia! A national accord has been reached on the most critical matter: no one can take away Georgia’s independence, no one can return Georgia to Russia, and no one can deprive Georgia of its will and its European future (…) I remain your President – there is no legitimate parliament and thus no legitimate election or inauguration. My mandate continues. I stand with you and will remain with you!,” she published on her social media, praising criminal “protesters” attacking the police.
In the end, the West wants a “Maidan for Georgia.” The goal is to “Ukrainize” the Caucasus’ country, making it an ally in NATO’s proxy war with Moscow. It is too early to say whether the legitimate government will have enough strength to resist the pressure for long, but regardless of the final outcome of this crisis, the situation is likely to escalate significantly in the near future.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram
December 2, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | European Union, Georgia, NATO |
Leave a comment
New EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said that sanctions are one of several “options” being considered by the bloc after Georgia froze accession talks with Brussels and cracked down on subsequent pro-EU protests.
Protests have been raging in Tbilisi since Thursday, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that he would freeze EU accession talks until 2028, due to Brussels’ “constant blackmail and manipulation” of Georgia’s domestic politics. At Saturday’s demonstration, demonstrators shot fireworks and lobbed molotov cocktails at riot police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons and arrested scores of people.
Speaking to reporters in Ukraine on Sunday, Kallas took the protesters’ side. “It is clear that using violence against peaceful protesters is not acceptable, and the Georgian government should respect the will of the Georgian people,” she declared.
“When it comes to the European Union, then this clearly has consequences on our relationship with Georgia,” she continued.
Kallas said that she had presented EU member states with a list of “options” for dealing with the situation in Georgia, including economic sanctions.
“We have different options,” she said. “But of course, we need to come to agreement.”
Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream party, which won nearly 54% of the vote in parliamentary elections last month, favors stable relations with both the EU and Russia. Pro-Western opposition parties, as well as Georgia’s French-born president, Salome Zourabichvili, have refused to recognize the results of the vote.
Zourabichvili’s mandate ends this month, but she has refused to leave office until the elections are re-run.
Kobakhidze has blamed the latest bout of civil unrest on “EU politicians and their agents,” accusing the West of trying to orchestrate a coup like the US-engineered Maidan revolution that toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected president in 2014. Earlier this year, Kobakhidze accused the European Commission of threatening him with assassination over the passing of a law forcing NGOs that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents.
Kallas assumed office on Sunday, replacing veteran EU diplomat Josep Borrell. Previously the prime minister of Estonia, Kallas is known for her ardent anti-Russian policies and rhetoric, and has repeatedly called for more sanctions on Moscow and military aid to Kiev. Under her leadership, Estonia became the first EU country to approve a mechanism to confiscate frozen Russian assets and use them as “compensation” for Ukraine.
Russia issued an arrest warrant for Kallas earlier this year due to her efforts to destroy Soviet WWII memorials in Estonia.
December 1, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | European Union, Georgia |
Leave a comment
The United States has broken off its “strategic partnership” with Georgia after the latter’s decision to suspend negotiations on potential accession to the European Union, while condemning Tbilisi for, what it called, leaning towards Russia.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller announced the development on X, former Twitter, on Saturday.
“The US and EU regret Georgian Dream (GD)’s decision to suspend EU accession,” he wrote, referring to Georgia’s ruling party.
“The EU is a bulwark against the Kremlin. We have, therefore, suspended our Strategic Partnership with Georgia,” Miller said.
He also claimed that the party’s decision on the accession talks was a “betrayal” of the European country’s constitution.
The State Department, meanwhile, released a statement on Washington’s decision, accusing the GD of “various anti-democratic actions [that] have violated the core tenets of our US-Georgia Strategic Partnership.”
By freezing the accession talks, it added, the party “has rejected the opportunity for closer ties with Europe and made Georgia more vulnerable to the Kremlin.”
The department also claimed that Georgian people “overwhelmingly support integration with Europe.”
GD Chairman Prime Minister, Irakli Kobakhidze suspended the accession process on Thursday, saying the EU was expecting Georgia to enact “reforms” in exchange for joining the bloc that were actually “steps that mean renouncing our dignity.”
The official was referring to Brussels’ various demands on Tbilisi, including its repealing of the foreign agents’ law that requires NGOs and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from foreign donors to register as organizations “bearing the interests of a foreign power.”
Brussels, he added, was effectively “blackmailing” Tbilisi through the demands.
The EU, itself, froze Georgia’s application for joining the bloc earlier this year in response to ratification of the law among other things.
The Georgian premier, meanwhile, addressed the ongoing anti-government riots that have been underway in the capital for the past two days, during which anarchists have put up barricades along the central Rustaveli Avenue and thrown fireworks at the riot police.
The country, he said, would not allow a revolution to take place, saying the rioters were seeking to overthrow the government, using the same tactics that were used during 2014 riots in Ukraine, known as the Maidan riots, which ousted the government in Kiev.
“In Georgia, the Maidan scenario cannot be realized. Georgia is a state, and the state will not, of course, permit this,” Kobakhidze said.
Georgia’s State Security Service also commented on the riots, calling them evidence that a violent coup attempt was taking place in the country.
“Developments occurring in recent days in the country show that planned destructive processes are taking place in accordance with actual circumstances becoming known to the State Security Service as part of the investigation of the violent upheaval case. We informed the society in advance about that,” the service said.
Specific political parties and non-governmental organizations are interested in a violent coup, it noted, adding that the developments were being investigated under Article 315 of the Georgian Criminal Code that covers conspiracy or mutiny for purposes of violent change of the Georgian constitutional order.
December 1, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, Georgia, United States |
Leave a comment
The United States and European Union are threatening consequences for Georgia after its citizens voted “the wrong way” – for peaceful relations with Russia and traditional moral values.
Farcically, this is while the U.S. heads into presidential elections that are mired in chaos and recriminations over vote rigging and buying of votes by oligarchs and big businesses.
Welcome to Western-style democracy where if you vote the way the powers-that-be want, it’s a fair election. If you vote the wrong way, it’s a rigged, flawed result that should be ignored or, worse, overturned.
Such was the heated reaction from Western states to the electoral victory of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party last weekend in the South Caucasus nation. The party campaigned on a strong, clear platform for pursuing peaceful neighborly relations with Russia.
GD also declared support for traditional social and moral values, rejecting the Western pseudo-liberal agenda of promoting gender-bender LGBTQ+ identities, which was espoused by the Western-backed Georgian opposition parties.
At the end of the day, Georgian Dream won a stunning victory, taking nearly 54 percent of the vote, translating into obtaining 90 out of a total of 150 parliamentary seats. Four opposition parties, which touted closer integration ties with NATO and the EU and acclaiming LGBTQ+ rights, won less than 38 percent of the vote.
The Georgian people are to be commended for asserting their democratic rights in the face of massive Western interference in the election. Western money and NGOs amplified the opposition parties. If they had won, the new pro-Western administration would have turned Georgia into a second war front against Russia in conjunction with the NATO-backed Ukrainian regime. Georgia and Ukraine have been at the center of the Western policy of expanding NATO around Russia’s borders. Both countries were declared future members of the military bloc as far back as 2008, although NATO membership is a red line for Russia.
Fortunately, Georgian voters were aware of the geopolitical stakes and rallied to the cause of prioritizing peaceful regional relations and rejecting the notional security privileges of NATO.
Western recriminations were fast and furious after the result. Western media reported that “Western pollsters” claimed that there were voting irregularities. What were Western pollsters doing in Georgia in the first place? Such entities sound more like a plant to stir post-election trouble.
As it turns out, there were indeed incidents of vote buying, ballot stuffing, and intimidation at polling stations. But videos showed that the incidents were agitprops organized by the Western-sponsored opposition parties.
However, thankfully, such malfeasance was relatively minor and did not invalidate the overall final result. Georgia’s Central Election Committee declared the process to be free and fair. The authorized election invigilating body has given its verdict, and that should be the end of it.
Disgracefully, the defeated opposition parties, who behave more like fifth columnists than patriotic representatives, have refused to recognize the result as legitimate. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili demeaned her constitutionally designated office of political neutrality by accusing Georgian Dream of “stealing the election.” She was afforded a prominent interview on CNN to peddle her treasonous slander that Russia interfered in the election to hamper the opposition.
Moscow vehemently repudiated accusations of interference. It pointed instead to the abundant evidence that Western states had vigorously tried to enhance the vote for opposition parties touting a common agenda.
At this early post-election stage, it is not clear if the opposition parties will persist in threats to hold street protests denouncing the new legislature. Certainly, one can well imagine that Western powers and entities will only be too glad to assist and amplify such civic disturbances – if they are not already inciting them.
Georgian Dream leader Irakli Kobakhidze applauded citizens for voting for a peaceful future. He indicated confidence that the opposition protests will fade into futility because, he said, they do command the support of citizens.
History shows that such confidence might be misplaced, or, at least, should not be complacent.
There is an ominous echo of the U.S.-led coups in Georgia during the 2003 Rose Revolution and the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014.
Georgia was one of the first in a series of so-called color revolutions that occurred in the post-Soviet regions. The fingerprints of the CIA, USAID, Soros Foundation, and other Western imperialist agencies are all over these movements. There is no doubt they were orchestrated with the help of Western media to foment regimes hostile towards Russia with the ultimate objective of destabilizing Russia itself.
The color revolutions have been a disaster for targeted countries. The Georgian Rose Revolution led to the despotic, corrupt regime of Mikhail Saakashvili who is currently in jail for abuse of power.
In Ukraine, the Orange Revolution in 2004-2005 led to the Maidan movement of 2014 that culminated in a NeoNazi regime, which destroyed that country in a proxy war with Russia at the behest of its NATO masters. It is estimated that 600,000-700,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in nearly three years of conflict. Millions of Ukrainian citizens have been displaced or fled their country. The nation has huge debts to Western capital, and its natural resources are owned by Wall Street.
As for Georgia, it has escaped the same fate – so far. The truth is that Georgia was subjected to a second color revolution in the run-up to this latest election. To be clear, a second color revolution is not on the way in Georgia; it is already underway. The question is: can the Georgian nation of four million defeat it definitively?
The United States and European Union are huffing and puffing about the latest Georgian election, hinting that they will not recognize the new government and that there will be “consequences.” The fact is the Western despotic powers were threatening consequences in the weeks before the vote on October 26. Georgians took courage and refused to be intimidated by Western threats or bribes. Such courage bodes well for their future independence and development. But vigilance is the watchword.
November 2, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Georgia, NATO |
Leave a comment
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has refused to be interviewed by the prosecutor general’s office about her claims of election fraud, arguing that investigators should look for evidence themselves.
Zourabichvili has joined several pro-Western opposition parties in accusing the ruling Georgian Dream party of “stealing” Saturday’s parliamentary vote, without providing specific examples.
The Prosecution Service of Georgia subsequently launched an investigation into the alleged falsification of the election and summoned Zourabichvili to appear on Thursday and provide evidence on the matter.
“I don’t intend to go to the prosecutor,” Zourabichvili said at a press conference in Tbilisi.
“It’s not up to the president to provide the proof,” she argued, adding that NGOs, election monitors and ordinary citizens have been providing “huge amounts” of evidence of election rigging. She said that more than 1,100 complaints have been filed regarding the conduct of the election.
“In any standard investigation, it’s the investigative body’s duty to gather proof, not the other way around. I’ve never seen an investigative authority ask a president for election-related evidence,” the president wrote on X.
“What we’re witnessing is an attempt to fuel tension and fear amid frustration over stolen votes. There’s psychological pressure directed at both you and me,” she added.
Mamuka Mdinaradze, executive secretary of Georgian Dream, advised the president to cooperate with the prosecutors. “President Zourabichvili must answer what her accusations are based on,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “We are ready, as part of the investigation in the prosecutor’s office, to open any polling station to prove that the elections were held fairly.”
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said that Zourabichvili and the opposition “have no evidence of election fraud, and if they do not go to the prosecutor’s office, this will be the clearest evidence that they made false statements about the elections.”
Kobakhidze previously stated that the election was “absolutely clean, democratic and fair.”
Zurab Japaridze, leader of the Girchi – More Freedom party said the critics of the government “do not trust” the prosecutor’s office and would advise the president not to meet with them.
Official tallies showed Georgian Dream received nearly 54% of the vote, winning a convincing parliamentary majority. The French-born Zourabichvili has rejected the results, describing the election as a “Russian special operation.” Along with the opposition leaders, she has demanded a new election, organized under international supervision.
Georgian election officials complained about Zourabichvili’s rhetoric on Tuesday, urging the prosecutors to investigate “unfounded attacks” on the central election commission. They noted that international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have “positively assessed the elections” and found no significant violations. The US and the EU, however, expressed their concerns and urged the Georgian authorities to investigate the reports of irregularities.
October 30, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception | European Union, Georgia, United States |
Leave a comment
The State Department and the European Union are demanding Tbilisi repeal “anti-democratic” legislation and investigate election “irregularities” respectively after the Georgian Dream Party won this weekend’s parliamentary elections. Georgian leaders including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and President Salome Zourabichvili are at odds, with Zourabichvili accusing Kobakhidze’s party of winning a “total fraud” election.
Per the official tally, Georgian Dream won 54% of the vote, with multiple opposition parties earning between 3-11%. Georgian Dream will form the country’s next government as they now hold a minimum of 90 out of the national parliament’s 150 seats. However, four opposition parties which favor integration with the EU are refusing to participate in the new legislature, deeming the election stolen, and accusing the ruling party of pushing Georgia towards a pro-Russia direction. President Zourabichvili called for protests and vowed she will not recognize the plebiscite’s results.
Tens of thousands of Georgians protested for hours outside parliament on Monday night, the demonstrations reportedly ended with no plans for further action but dispersed peacefully. The Georgian government and electoral commission have dubbed the election free and fair.
State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller threatened Georgia with “consequences” before adding his demands. Miller characterized the election as having taken place within an “environment shaped by the ruling party’s policies including misuse of public resources, vote buying and voter intimidation.”
He made clear the path Georgia is taking does not bode well for its future in America’s orbit, “We encourage Georgia’s governing officials to consider the relationship they want with the Euro-Atlantic community rather than strengthening policies that are praised by authoritarians.”
Finally Miller, speaking for a government which has extensively meddled in Georgian elections including staging a coup in the 2003 Rose Revolution, warned “We do not rule out further consequences if the Georgian government’s direction does not change.” He then insisted that Tbilisi begin “withdrawing and repealing anti-democratic legislation.”
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe praised Georgia’s voter participation, substantial presence of citizen and party observers, as well as the diversity of ballot choices during the election. OSCE observers “found the legal framework to be adequate for holding democratic elections.” Although they also accused the ruling party of exploiting an “already uneven playing field,” and claimed there were instances of intimidation, coercion, and pressure being put on voters including public sector employees.
EU Council chief Charles Michel is calling on the relevant authorities in Georgia to “swiftly, transparently, and independently investigate and adjudicate electoral irregularities and allegations thereof.” He added, “These alleged irregularities must be seriously clarified and addressed.”
Western governments are condemning Georgia’s ‘law on transparency of foreign influence,’ which requires agencies to register as “agents of foreign influence” if they are operating within Georgia and foreign sources account for over 20% of their funding. Georgia’s parliamentary speaker signed the bill into law after it was vetoed by President Zourabichvili earlier this year. The law operates similarly to the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.
The West is also in an uproar against Georgian laws banning gender reassignment surgery, gay marriage, and so called LGBTQ “propaganda” including PRIDE-style events along with certain books and films. Although, polling shows significant public disapproval in Georgia of same-sex marriages.
Last month, a senior US official told Voice of America, the American state-funded media outlet, that Washington is preparing sanctions on former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream’s influential founder, over his opposition to Tbilisi joining NATO and the EU.
An analysis by Ian Proud published by Responsible Statecraft makes the case that the ruling party’s victory can be explained not by election rigging but as a popular response to various economic and immigration crises.
Proud notes the uneven trade relationship the Caucasian country maintains with the EU since signing the EU Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement ten years ago. EU states benefit from robust exports in Georgia while purchasing four times less Georgian imports. The trade balance is more even with the Eurasian States, although they too export 1.8 times more than they import.
At the same time, the Washington-led proxy war with Moscow in Ukraine is both funded and championed by the EU. The war has caused an immigration crisis in Georgia with nearly 90,000 people emigrating from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine between 2022 and 2023. This has led to a surging unemployment rate of over 26%, while housing prices are up 35% and rent prices have risen as much as 50%.
In 2008, at NATO’s Bucharest Summit, Brussels announced both Tbilisi and Kiev would one day join the Washington-led military bloc which has been mired in disastrous wars in the Balkans, North Africa, and Central Asia. The admission of both states to the alliance is viewed in the Kremlin as a major national security threat and provoked Russia’s invasions of both Georgia sixteen years ago and now Ukraine.
As Scott Horton, the Libertarian Institute’s director, has detailed, the now jailed former president Mikheil Saakashvili, the victor of the US-backed Rose Revolution, “was incentivized to take bigger risks due to the Bucharest Declaration of America’s intent to bring them into the NATO alliance just four months before, U.S. military support and vague security assurances the Bush government had given his government that spring. Saakashvili launched an attack on the breakaway province of South Ossetia in the southern Caucuses Mountains, then enjoying full autonomy and protection by Russian peacekeepers under a deal that had been brokered by [the] European Union… The Russians, suffering casualties in the initial assault, quickly struck back, destroying Georgia’s invading force and securing South Ossetia’s independence from Georgian rule.”
Barack Obama’s administration orchestrated a coup and overthrew the government in Kiev during the 2014 Maidan Revolution. Subsequently during the Donald Trump years, the White House armed Ukraine’s military, including Neo Nazi militias integrated in the National Guard. Concurrently, Kiev entrenched ties with US special operations forces and the CIA as it waged a war against ethnic Russian separatists in the Donbas region.
Under the current White House, as tensions mounted over the Donbas, the erstwhile USSR state became a de facto NATO member as Washington eschewed diplomacy with the Kremlin, refusing to discuss rescinding Ukraine’s invitation for membership with the alliance, culminating in Russia’s 2022 invasion.
October 30, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Progressive Hypocrite | European Union, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
Leave a comment
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned against “lecturing” Georgia after the outcome of the parliamentary election in the former Soviet republic attracted sharp criticism from the EU and US.
Orban arrived in Tbilisi on an official visit on Monday. The trip comes after the ruling Georgian Dream party, which seeks to build pragmatic relations with Russia, secured 54% of the vote in Saturday’s election. The victory is expected to give Georgian Dream at least 90 seats in the 150-member national parliament, allowing it to form the country’s next government.
Various opposition forces garnered between 11% and 3% each, according to the Central Electoral Commission.
“One thing is clear about this weekend’s elections: the people of Georgia voted for peace and prosperity in free and democratic elections. We are here to support Georgia’s European integration efforts and to strengthen relations,” Orban wrote on X on Tuesday.
Pro-Western opposition parties have refused to recognize the results, branding the vote a “constitutional coup.” Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Tbilisi on Monday. Georgia’s president, the French-born Salome Zourabichvili, who has sided with the opposition, had earlier called for a rally outside parliament.
Moscow has accused the West of “completely unprecedented interference attempts” in the Georgian vote.
On Monday, the US claimed there was “vote buying and voter intimidation” during the election and threatened Georgia with “consequences.”
“We encourage Georgia’s governing officials to consider the relationship they want with the Euro-Atlantic community rather than strengthening policies that are praised by authoritarians,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
On Sunday, the EU Commission issued a statement voicing concerns of “a tense environment” and “irregularities” in the election. European Council President Charles Michel insisted that Georgia must “prove its commitment” to joining the bloc.
Georgia submitted its EU membership application in March 2022 after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, and was granted candidate status in December 2023.
Western governments have since accused Georgia of democratic backsliding over its recent policies such as labelling NGOs as ‘foreign agents’ and a ban on LGBTQ ‘propaganda’ to minors.
“Georgia is a conservative, Christian and pro-Europe state. Instead of useless lecturing, they need our support on their European path,” argued Orban.
The Hungarian prime minister has voiced views that oppose those of Brussels on issues such as the Ukraine conflict and relations with Russia. His government has refused to send weapons to Kiev and has called for a negotiated solution. Orban has been accused by the West of being pro-Russian, while he has repeatedly insisted that his policies aim to defend the interests of the Hungarian people.
October 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | European Union, Georgia, United States |
3 Comments
Thousands gathered outside the parliament building in Tbilisi on Monday night amid opposition claims that Saturday’s parliamentary elections were “rigged”. The strategy is not new, and designed to pressure the ruling party into becoming more malleable to Western interests, says political analyst and Caucasus politics expert Stanislav Tarasov.
The United States and the European Union “want to create a whole package of conflict situations: Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, and to play these games like a grandmaster across multiple boards, yielding somewhere while hitting out somewhere else,” Tarasov told Sputnik, commenting on the shaky political situation in Georgia after the weekend’s parliamentary vote, which some observers fear may escalate into a new Euromaidan-style coup scenario.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller announced Monday that the US would “join calls for international and local observers for a full investigation of all reports of election-related violations.” The US has “consistently urged the Georgian government this year to walk back its anti-democratic actions and return to its Euro-Atlantic path. We do not rule out further consequences if the Georgian government’s direction does not change,” Miller warned.
Georgia can expect further pressure from the West, including sanctions, if the Georgian Dream Party government sticks to its independence on foreign and domestic policy, Tarasov says.
The former includes pragmatism in relations toward Russia to avoid being dragged into a Western-fueled conflict, while the latter features staunchly socially conservative policies decried by the EU and the US, plus a foreign agent law passed earlier this year to ensure transparency among NGOs, which forced would-be agents of foreign influence to register as such. That measure was also slammed by Washington and its allies.
“They’ll impose sanctions… They can’t very well send in the armed forces or some expeditionary corps. First they feed them some investments, then they impose sanctions; first they open a visa regime; then they impose bans, and so on and so forth… This is the primitive scheme in the American version of colonial rule being implemented in relation to Georgia,” the observer said.
Pointing to the unlikelihood of the West being able to oust the ruling Georgian Dream Party, which won nearly 54% of the vote and gathered enough seats to form a new government, Tarasov believes the opposition’s claims of fraud and manipulation may not be aimed at overthrowing the government, but forcing it to accept members of the opposition into a coalition to “erode” it from within.
“In this case, the plot is aimed not so much at destabilizing the domestic situation, but is a purely political technological approach designed to force Georgian Dream to accept the idea of a coalition,” Tarasov said. Once inside, the opposition can block certain policies, including regional economic and infrastructure projects like the North-South Transport Corridor that would allow Tbilisi to escape the West’s political and economic grip entirely, according to the analyst.
October 29, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | European Union, Georgia, United States |
Leave a comment
The West is openly trying to interfere in Georgia’s parliamentary elections, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, stressing that voters in the former Soviet republic have every right to independently choose their own future.
In Saturday’s high-stakes election, the ruling Georgian Dream party, which seeks to build pragmatic relations with Russia, secured 54% of the vote, while various opposition forces garnered between 11% and 3% each, according to the Central Electoral Commission.
Pro-Western opposition parties, however, have refused to recognize the results, calling the vote a “constitutional coup.” The nation’s French-born President Salome Zourabichvili joined the chorus, urging the people to protest and claiming that Georgia had become a “victim of a Russian special operation.”
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Peskov unequivocally denied the allegations. “We are not trying at all and hardly have the opportunity to influence the development of the situation” in the country, he said, stressing that “it is the Georgian people’s business to make the relevant decisions.”
“However, we see completely unprecedented interference attempts from the West. They are trying not only to twist Tbilisi’s arms, but also to impose their terms. It is hard for me to imagine how the proud Georgian people can tolerate such ultimatums that pour in daily.”
On Sunday, the EU Commission issued a statement voicing concerns of “a tense environment, with frequent compromises in vote secrecy and several procedural inconsistencies” as well as “irregularities” in the election, insisting that those issues must be addressed. European Council President Charles Michel also noted that Georgia must prove its commitment to continuing the path to joining the bloc.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has demanded that Georgia conduct an investigation into reports on violations during the vote while sounding the alarm about suspected “vote buying, and voter intimidation.”
This summer, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze warned that pro-Western opposition in the country would open a “second front” against Russia in addition to the Ukraine conflict if it won the parliamentary elections. Around the same time, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service said that the US was seeking a regime change in the Caucasus country by fomenting protests during the vote.
Relations between the West and Tbilisi soured in recent months after Georgia passed the ‘foreign agents’ law requiring entities and individuals which receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “promoting the interests of a foreign power.” While its proponents insisted it would increase transparency, the EU condemned the legislation, warning that it goes against Georgia’s goal of joining the bloc.
October 28, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Progressive Hypocrite | European Union, Georgia, Russia, United States |
1 Comment
Washington is preparing sanctions against former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili over his opposition to Tbilisi joining the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union.
A senior US official told American state media, Voice of America, that Ivanishvili’s growing ties with Russia are concerning the White House. “We have information that Ivanishvili undertook actions to develop relations with Russian oligarchs, took actions to enable Russia to gain better access to the Georgian market,” the official explained. “In fact, he took some actions at the direction of the Russian intelligence services.”
While Ivanishvili has not personally been involved in Georgian politics since 2013, his populist Georgia Dream party is gaining influence in Tbilisi. The party has increasingly found itself at odds with Washington over a foreign agents law that was passed in Tbilisi earlier this year.
Similar to the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) the legalization required agencies operating in Georgia and receiving more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as foreign agents.
A source familiar with the Biden administration’s plan to sanction Ivanishvili said the move is coming out of frustration that Washington has been unable to move Tbilisi. “I think the Biden administration has been frustrated by its inability to get the Georgian government to take seriously the position they’ve put themselves in,” a source said. “The Biden people are trying to convey the seriousness and hope that somebody in the Georgian government is listening in a serious way.”
In 2008, NATO signed a pledge to one day admit Ukraine and Georgia into the Washington-led bloc. However, the Kremlin views the countries’ entrance into the alliance as a national security threat. In 2022, Moscow invaded Ukraine, in part because Kiev was becoming a de facto member of NATO.
September 25, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Georgia, NATO, United States |
Leave a comment
Aletho News 