Sabra Lane: The former Soviet Republic of Georgia, once a darling of the West and on a fast track to membership of the European Union, has recently made a stunning about-face, passing a raft of draconian laws crushing civil society and jailing dissenters. Stephanie March has travelled to the Caucasus for a foreign correspondent to report on a democracy crumbling in warnings Russia is behind Georgia’s authoritarian shift.
Protesters: We are the supreme regime! We are the free people!
Stephanie March: Amid a throng of masked anti-government protesters outside Georgia’s parliament in Tbilisi, elected opposition MP Zurab Japaridze stands defiant. He expects he’ll be jailed the following day. How are you feeling about it?
Zurab Japaridze: A bit nervous, but I had the feeling that sooner or later we will get there when they will start arresting politicians. I’ve got family, I’ve got three kids. It’s not that easy to psychologically get prepared for that.
Stephanie March: He’s facing prison time for not turning up to a parliamentary inquiry. But arresting politicians is just part of the ruling Georgian Dream Government’s slide towards autocracy. The party won re-election off the back of a disputed poll last October, has passed a series of oppressive laws that mimic those in Russia, and has blown up the process for Georgia to become part of the European Union. Zurab Japaridze is in no doubt where the blame lies for Georgia’s anti-democratic tilt. Who or what is behind it?
Zurab Japaridze: It’s Russia, definitely. It’s Russia’s playbook.
Stephanie March: Georgian Dream was founded on a pro-EU platform more than a decade ago by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishivili, who made his money in Russia. But when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he turned on the West. While some suspect he’s been a Putin plant all along, one of his most loyal lieutenants is Georgian Dream’s longest serving minister, Thea Tsulukiani.
Stephanie March: A lot of the people we’ve spoken to here believe that the Georgian Dream government is actually being influenced by Russia. Perhaps it’s even acting on behalf of Russia. What do you say to that? Is that true?
Thea Tsulukiani: For me, this is, with all my respect to you and to this question, this question is not a serious one, because it’s part of a kind of propaganda.
Stephanie March: But Georgia’s last democratically elected president, Salome Zourabishvili, believes Russia’s fully involved in Georgia’s authoritarian turn, and says it’s not just her country that’s at risk.
Salome Zourabishvili: Now here they’re experimenting a new strategy, a hybrid strategy. How do you get to control a country, to take partly domination on the country? Through manipulation of elections, through propaganda, through a proxy government. That is something that if it works here, to the end, if it’s completely successful, it can be applied anywhere.
Stephanie March: There’s a crowd of supporters outside the courtroom where Zurab Japaridze’s hearing is underway. Inside, the judge orders he’ll be held on remand. He’s ultimately sentenced to seven months in prison, the first of eight opposition figures to be jailed in just two weeks. This is Stephanie March in Tbilisi, reporting for AM.