Almost a month since Georgia’s pivotal election, so much is still up in the air. The government was unsurprisingly quick to claim victory. At no point in the run-up to the national vote had Georgian Dream (GD), the ruling party, acted like a group that was even considering giving up power. With plans to ban all major opposition parties post-election, GD was clearly planning to maintain its vice-like grip over the country for the foreseeable future.

On the other side, Georgia’s opposition was equally fast in denouncing the results of the vote. The collision course between the two sides was set from literally the moment of the polls closing, with exit polls for each side showing diametrically opposed results. To date, the drama has shown no signs of dwindling – if anything, it appears to be picking up speed.

I’ve seen a lot of Georgian protests and votes since moving to the Caucasus seven years ago, spurred by events ranging from night club raids to unlawful killings by the security forces to sweeping anti-democratic legislation. Over the course of nearly a month in Georgia, I’ve watched how the present protest movement has developed, from its incredibly underwhelming beginnings to the increasingly dynamic and energised protests playing out now. While there’s no telling what might happen next, the recent trajectory suggests that events in Georgia will only grow more noteworthy in the coming weeks.

In a lot of ways, the most surprising aspect of the current public discontent is how long it took to manifest. For years, protests in front of Georgia’s parliament for one cause or another have continued almost uninterrupted, often with multiple disparate groups of demonstrators camped out at once, united only by their dissatisfaction with the authorities. 

They often erupt into bigger waves, with crowds surging down Tbilisi’s central Rustaveli Avenue every few months for one reason or another. You can say a lot of things about the political culture in Georgia but you can’t say it doesn’t have a robust tradition of public participation.

That was what made the hours and days following Georgia’s pivotal election last month so striking. As polls closed at 8PM on October 26, I was at the headquarters of Coalition for Change, one of the largest opposition blocs. When the first (opposition-commissioned) exit polls were announced, there was jubilation as they showed an opposition victory.

By an hour later, after the first official results from the Central Election Commission emerged – indicating a Georgian Dream victory - you could have heard a pin drop. As the bad news continued to unfold, I figured, as many did, that Rustaveli would soon be a war zone, filled with demonstrators and riot police phalanxes as it had been so many times before. 

I went down to the front of parliament and waited, and waited. There were several dozen journalists there, all expecting the same thing. Not a single protester appeared. The opposition leaders had all quietly dispersed from their various headquarters, seemingly in shock from the results, and had not called for any immediate public gatherings to contest the election results. 

Even then, I had expected some spontaneous demonstration from various Tbilisians incensed at the outcome. Not a soul appeared. I was genuinely stunned. After all this – the years of protest, of organisation, of civil disobedience – was this how it would end? The country – and the opposition – was just going to lie down and accept the enshrinement of GD rule and the incoming dismantling of the country’s democracy?

The next day – Sunday, October 27 – did not bring any protest either. The opposition called a joint rally in front of parliament only on Monday evening, a full 48 hours after the vote’s end. It was a perfunctory, morose event. President Salome Zourabichvili, effectively the coordinator of the four main opposition coalitions, announced their full rejection of the falsified election results and a call for a new vote under international supervision.

There were no indications of how they planned to bring this about, or what they or their supporters would, or should, do next. Most of the people in attendance that I spoke with showed little hope for anything to change. After two hours, the rally quietly ended and everyone went home. The mood was one of resignation – certainly not fiery revolution.

The public mood further ebbed over the rest of the week. The utter lack of activity almost beggared belief. Life in Tbilisi went on as if it was any ordinary week; with the exception of that two hours on Monday evening, there was not a single indication that the country’s future had just been decided – and for the worse – in a highly fraudulent election. 

There was no further opposition activity until Thursday, when three of the four coalitions called a joint press conference in which they stated they would announce their plans for the near future. Seemingly every journalist in the country duly turned up for it – only to be told that the plan would actually be revealed at another protest the following Monday. It was almost a farce at this point, the opposition’s incompetence shading from tragedy into comedy. 

Surely this election result – Georgian Dream announcing victory, one way or another – was by far the most likely outcome. How, then, was the opposition not only evidently caught by surprise by this, but was taking nine full days – losing all momentum and international media attention in the process – to announce a plan they could – and should – have formulated before the vote? “This is a joke,” one Georgian friend said to me after watching the same sad presser.

A foreign spark

The following Monday, November 4, the opposition held their rally and finally announced their next moves. Instead of demonstrating in front of the parliament, there would now be daily rallies in different key locations around Tbilisi, aiming to paralyse different parts of the city. 

This also did not feel particularly inspiring, but protests did indeed take place across Tbilisi for the next week. While they still felt somewhat anaemic, there was at least a logic to them that I could appreciate. The parliament rallies in years past, after all, had all failed to achieve their goals, and the government had become supremely adept at containing them. A new strategy was surely warranted, and this qualified.

It was not for another week, however, before things began to feel truly different. On November 11, a group of eight European politicians arrived in the country. Led by Michael Roth, head of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, the parliamentarians spent the day meeting with the opposition before joining them (and speaking at) the rally that evening.

Their presence was energising. As they lined up at the podium, giving one fiery speech after the next, their effect on the crowd was palpable. Despite statements and condemnations from some international partners in the previous weeks, people opposed to GD in Georgia had largely felt left alone following the vote; now, for the first time, they could see that they did have foreign friends.

I myself found myself feeling inspired by the rhetoric, something I never thought I’d say about European politicians. As they left, they were met with hugs and more cheers by those in the crowd, some of whom were even in tears. It felt like a moment that we may look back on – depending how the next weeks and months play out – as a watershed.

Since that day, the protests in Georgia have been visibly more energised. Seven days later, the opposition held their first overnight sit-in, in front of Tbilisi State University. A similar demonstration erupted in Batumi, with students there occupying a building at their university in the first major protest outside of Tbilisi. More marches are planned in the capital, and new acts of civil disobedience are in the works, too. After an (inexcusably) slow start, momentum appears to be building.

There is a long way yet to go. In the past few days, GD, too, has used one of its main tools for the first time since the vote, deploying police to forcibly break up the Tbilisi university sit-in. The ruling party still has many more cards to play, from freezing the bank accounts of opposition leaders, to direct targeted arrests of key figures. 

The next crucial date appears to be November 25, when the composition of the new Georgian government will be presented in parliament – an event the opposition has long since said it will boycott. While it’s anyone’s guess what will happen then, and in the months that follow, the results are set to be much more dramatic than most would have guessed just two weeks ago.