Let's start this story from the beginning. There are two main parties in Georgia: United National Movement and Georgian Dream. Both were pro-western leaning until recently (around 2022), UNM is the party of complete sell-outs, completely funded and paid for by the west. Georgian Dream on the other hand was also pro-western but it's more pragmatic about it.
2003, there was the revolution of roses which brought down some of the post-soviet leaders and brought UNM into power. This is important because, soon after, the UNM would drag Georgia into a brief war against Russia in 2008. Georgia would quickly lose this war and two of its separatist regions would declare independence. Namely Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The current Georgian authorities and heads of state say that the georgian higher ups at the time of the war were war criminals, and that they are responsible for it. So the main narrative of blaming Russia shifted to blaming the UNM in Georgia.
This 2008 war could be considered a warning shot for Georgia. Georgians themselves realized this it seems, because they voted the UNM out in 2012 and they haven't been in power since then. 2012 starts the period of Georgian Dream's rule, it's mostly nothing burger so I'll skip to 2022.
Obviously the war in ukraine meant that the west once again had interest in Georgia aswell. However, at around the same time, in an unexpected turn of events, the Georgian Dream party started to wake up and understand what is truly happening. Due to this, GD took important steps immediately. They introduced the "law on foreign agents" which targets foreign news agencies, they introduced an anti-lgbt law and they sought to strengthen the position of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Most importantly, they refused to impose sanctions on Russia despite heavy pressure to do so. Russia noticed this and, in return, did not recognize the referandums that took place in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Recognizing these referandums would mean that these two regions would become part of Russia and would slip out of Georgian control forever. Also, Russia did not include Georgia in its list of "unfriendly countries" as another nod to them.
This is the list in question.
All these events pissed off the west, of course. Especially as Ukraine's situation got worse and worse over the battlefield. So western media immediately labelled GD as le evil authoritarian regime that does all this against the will of the Georgian population. Protests quickly erupted.
What they don't tell you is that these protests are not organic, they are fully funded by the west and unlike what the media tells you, they are not peaceful protests. Many foreigners arrived in the country to participate in them.
Fast forward to the 2024 Georgian Parliamentary election, now this election was exactly what (((they))) were all looking forward to. The best opportunity to vote out Georgian Dream, install the UNM in place and then open a second front of the war against Russia through this country. GD emphasized especially this during the election campaign and made it clear that to vote for any party other than GD is to vote for war.
en.m.wikipedia.org
^ get a brief summary of that here.
Well, despite all the pressure, Georgians voted for GD. And it wasn't a difficult victory either, GD got over 50 percent of the votes while the opposition coalition got a little over 30 percent.
Western media immediately labelled these elections as fraudulent and called for new elections. They also supported the violent protests that erupted in the country. The aim was another maidan. For a few weeks or so, these protests continued but achieved no results.
After this, you have the whole power struggle between the president and the ruling party. I will talk about that next.
