01-12-2022
The changing face of global geopolitics means that Georgia faces new challenges. Recent events, specifically the Georgian government’s critical messages aimed at Georgia’s Western partners have left some with the impression that the country’s pro-European orientation is in doubt. These doubts have been further reinforced by the emergence of a new political actor called People’s Power, which is affiliated with the ruling party and is made up predominantly of figures who were until recently members of the ruling Georgian Dream party or were pro-government journalists or experts. From the outset, this new party has adopted clearly populist and conspiratorial anti-Western messaging which casts doubt on Georgia’s established pro-Western foreign policy course.
Given the clearly benign stance of the ruling party towards People’s Power, there exists a suspicion that this new force is part of Georgian Dream’s electoral strategy to create a satellite party with whom future cooperation will be easy. Georgian Dream realizes that winning a fourth term of office in the 2024 elections will be difficult. As such, it has decided to mitigate this risk through the creation of a satellite party to attract its disaffected socially conservative supporters with anti-Western rhetoric. At the same time, it will seek to distract from its failure to attain Euro-Atlantic integration by pointing the finger of blame at the West. Against this background, it is important to analyse the aims of the new political force in both domestic and foreign policy and whether the appearance of such a force could cause damage to the democratic process.