KVARELI, Georgia -- In Georgia's wine country, there is one political issue that dominates all others.
"Our biggest problem is that we don't have good prices for grapes," said Dimitri Makhvashvili. He was sitting in his orange Soviet-era truck, the back heaving with green grapes that he was dropping off at a local processing facility.
Prices for grapes are set by the state, and are a perennial source of discontent. Last year, farmers blocked roads in and around Kvareli, a town of about 8,000 in Georgia's far east, to protest low prices. "People's labor isn't valued; farmers have nothing," Makhvashvili said.
But with parliamentary elections approaching next month, Makhvashvili isn't optimistic that any of the parties running will do anything to help. "Everyone says they are going to raise the prices of grapes, but when they come to power no one ever does it," he said.
Watershed Elections
The October 26 vote is widely seen as a watershed moment for Georgia, with the country's opposition parties framing it as a stark choice between Russia and the West. The ruling Georgian Dream party, they argue, has steered the country -- for the last two decades a loyal ally of the U.S. and Europe -- toward Russia. The opposition promises to restore Georgia's cozy relations with the West.
That narrative has helped energize Georgia's urban, middle-class opposition supporters. This spring, they came out in the tens of thousands to protest what they dubbed the "Russian law," which requires NGOs and media organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as entities working "in the interest of a foreign power."
But analysts and pollsters say that the message focused on geopolitics will not resonate with the 70 percent of Georgians who live outside the capital, Tbilisi, and who are primarily concerned about day-to-day quality-of-life issues.
A recent preelection assessment mission to Georgia by the U.S.-based McCain Institute reported that one of its key takeaways was "the belief of many civil society, media, and opposition representatives that Georgian voters have turned on [Georgian Dream] and view the election as a choice between the West and Russia. Even with electoral intimidation and possible manipulation, they are confident that [Georgian Dream] cannot win."
"This belief, however, was contradicted by those who closely track voter opinions and spend time outside Tbilisi," the report continued. "They report that the top issues for most Georgians are the economy and jobs, not EU membership" and Georgian Dream's message that the country needs to reach an accommodation with Russia. Those findings were echoed in a recent report on the election campaign in rural areas by Nino Samkharadze, an analyst at the Georgian Institute of Politics think tank.
"If parties communicate with people in the regions they are doing it not wrongly but imprecisely," Samkharadze told RFE/RL. "They are talking about Europe vs. Russia and the locals in, for example, Marneuli or in Svaneti, they simply don't care that much. It's important, of course, and [rural Georgians] know this, but on a day-to-day basis when they wake up, they care mostly about, for example, the prices of their products."
Fighting On Different Issues
Georgian Dream's campaign messages have not been very focused on bread-and-butter issues, either: They have embraced social conservatism, such as laws restricting what they call "LGBT propaganda" and have adopted an anti-Western narrative emphasizing Georgia's sovereignty.
But by virtue of being in power, they get credit for taking care of people's everyday problems, Samkharadze said.
People "know more about the ruling party because they are always there," Samkharadze said. "The [ruling] party and the government in Georgia are basically the same thing, and they are used interchangeably, so the mayor from [Georgian Dream] is the [Georgian Dream] representative, not the government representative for them…. If you're building a road, it means that [Georgian Dream] is building the road, not the government."
And opposition parties' problems are bigger than just their message. They don't invest much money or time into rural areas or small towns, largely out of a lack of resources and the belief that they should concentrate their forces where their chances are greater. So, there are few local party offices, and those that exist are hard to find and contact, Samkharadze said. People in rural areas depend to a greater degree on government services, and those are controlled by Georgian Dream, making open support of the opposition risky.
All those disadvantages show up in polls. A recent survey from the Caucasus Research Resource Center, a Tbilisi-based pollster, found that voters outside Tbilisi are much more likely to trust the current government and much less likely to believe that any opposition party is close to them.
Getting Out The Vote
Here in Kvareli, in the heart of Georgia's wine country, hundreds of posters for Georgian Dream are pasted on utility poles and abandoned buildings. Not a single sign for any other political party is visible.
"Unfortunately the opposition parties are not doing anything in Kvareli," said one opposition-supporting resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from the local authorities. "I'm really afraid, it's even more quiet this year" compared to previous campaigns.
"The main topic in [the region of] Kakheti is the price of grapes every year," the resident said, adding that the opposition parties are unable to articulate a message on the issue. "This is a huge problem."
On the day RFE/RL visited, there was, in fact, some opposition activity in Kvareli: Unity-To Save Georgia, the opposition bloc uniting the United National Movement (ENM) and Strategy Aghmeshenebeli parties, was holding a rally. But in keeping with standard Georgian practice, the rally was not publicized and only party supporters were invited.
Kvareli is a relative ENM stronghold: former President Mikheil Saakashvili, the party's founder, took a liking to the town during his time in power and is credited for developing the area. He frequently brought foreign dignitaries here to show off the area's vineyards and eventually bought a house here himself. The party now holds seven seats in Kvareli's 27-seat municipal assembly, otherwise dominated by Georgian Dream.
Many of the rallygoers were not from Kvareli, though, and instead were bused in from other parts of the region. A large number, especially women, had dressed up for the occasion in cocktail dresses or smart pantsuits.
The event was designed for media: the organizers had set up a crane for dramatic overhead shots of the crowd, and as the proceedings were about to begin, an emcee exhorted the crowd: "Be fun, clap, be enthusiastic!"
The setting, too, was picture-perfect: at sunset on the shores of Ilia Lake, a local beauty spot just outside Kvareli. ENM partisans pointed out that the area had seen substantial improvements -- such as a bike path and volleyball courts -- under Saakashvili's rule.
But the remote location meant the rally was invisible except to the invited party faithful and future viewers on social media. The opposition-supporting resident, interviewed the same day, wasn't aware of the event, even though Unity-To Save Georgia was one of the blocs he was considering supporting.
Voters Want More Specifics
Wine prices were indeed high on the agenda of the speakers at the rally, but they all brought the issue back to the Russia-vs-the-West question. Levan Bezhashvili, a former governor of Kakheti and a deputy for the opposition ENM, said that the reason grape prices are low is because Georgia sells so much of its wine to Russia rather than to Europe and the United States. If the opposition were to win, ENM chair Tina Bokuchava claimed, Georgia would get $14 billion in aid from the EU, some of which would go to agriculture.
Those kinds of platitudes often fall flat, said analyst Samkharadze, who, in researching her report, monitored opposition campaign speeches around the country.
"They mention wine but not in a specific, region-based way. They say that 'our wine should be exported to the EU, and, for this, we need to achieve certain standards.'" To farmers, though, this is an abstract prospect, she said. "They need more specifics. If region X needs a certain kind of state program in this regard, region Y might need a different type of state intervention. This is what they are lacking," she said.
Still, the outcome of the elections remains difficult to predict and overall dissatisfaction with Georgian Dream may well be enough to push the opposition to victory.
Makhvashvili, the grape truck driver, said he hadn't decided for whom he'll be voting -- but it won't be Georgian Dream. "They have been in power for a decade and they have left a worse situation than there was before," he said. He said he supported the party when it first came to power, but that he and his friends and coworkers have changed their minds: "We voted for Georgian Dream in 2012, but since then, no one has voted for them."
