In Its Reelection Campaign, Georgia's Ruling Party Plays The Ukraine War Card

TBILISI -- Georgia's ruling party is portraying the upcoming elections as an existential choice: between war and peace.

For government critics, though, what the government is promising is not peace but instead capitulation to their enemy, Russia.

Ahead of the October 26 parliamentary elections, a new ad campaign from Georgian Dream juxtaposes black-and-white images of war-torn Ukraine with color images of prospering, peaceful Georgia.

A rubble-strewn boulevard in Ukraine is depicted next to Tbilisi's recently renovated Chavchavadze Avenue. A bombed-out Ukrainian soccer stadium is contrasted to one of the many sports arenas built in Georgia under the current ruling party. Under the images from Ukraine is the caption "No War" and under the Georgian ones, "Choose Peace."

The campaign has shocked many Georgians who feel that it blames Ukrainians for getting invaded. "I have never seen anything so shameful, so offensive to our culture, traditions, history, and beliefs," wrote President Salome Zurabishvili, a sharp critic of Georgian Dream, on Facebook.

Russia-Georgia War

Russian troops invaded Georgia in a five-day war in 2008, and since then Moscow has militarily and diplomatically propped up breakaway authorities in the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in what Georgians say is an occupation of their territory.

While Georgian Dreams's leaders rarely bring up the topic of Russia explicitly, one of their arguments for a fourth term in power is that they are the only party capable of managing the difficult relationship with their northern neighbor.

Russian troops outside Gori on August 19, 2008

On October 26, we will decide between war and peace," Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder and still de facto leader of Georgian Dream, said at a September 8 rally.

The promise of peace has been central to the messaging of Georgian Dream and Ivanishvili since they first came to power after winning parliamentary elections in October 2012. It was under the previous government, led by President Mikheil Saakashvili, that Georgia suffered a punishing defeat in the 2008 war over South Ossetia.

Cautious Approach To Russia

A key element of Ivanishvili's 2012 campaign message was to blame Saakashvili for provoking Russia's invasion. After coming to power, Georgian Dream sought a less confrontational relationship with the Kremlin, which many in the opposition saw as effectively pro-Russian.

Georgian Dream's peace narrative gained strength following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Georgian leaders adopted a deeply cautious approach, declining to criticize Russia's attack and often veering into anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.

There were calls from Kyiv and elsewhere asking Georgia to do its own part in the broader fight against Russia, by opening a "second front" against Russian forces in the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Over time, Georgian officials fashioned those sporadic appeals into a worldwide conspiracy, which they called the "global war party," aimed at dragging Georgia into the war.

Now, with the parliamentary elections approaching, Georgian Dream is putting an even closer spotlight on questions of war and peace.

The party has hinted that it will be able to recover control over its breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. "We have two national tasks, that is to restore territorial integrity and eliminate poverty in our country. Our entire program is aimed at fulfilling these two national tasks," Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhdize said at an October 8 event to roll out the party's platform. While he didn't provide specifics on how the territory would be regained, he said it would be "accomplished in the wake of the change in the regional political situation."

Rhetoric like this taps into a widespread -- but, analysts say, unrealistic -- belief among Georgians that Moscow would give up its backing of the separatist de facto states in exchange for Tbilisi renouncing its Western geopolitical orientation.

Russian Support For Georgian Dream

Ivanishvili himself fanned those rumors by suggesting recently that Georgians should apologize to Ossetians for the 2008 war and implying that it was Saakashvili's Western allies who pushed him into starting the war. It is Saakashvili's United National Movement that remains Georgia's single largest opposition party.

Just as the United States and the European Union have made it clear that they are banking on a Georgian Dream defeat, Russia has come out openly in favor of a ruling party victory.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has praised Georgia's government for precisely the moves that have vexed Tbilisi's Western partners, such as adopting laws on "foreign agents" and combating "LGBT propaganda."

Another variant of the Georgian Dream campaign billboard

Lavrov's statements on Georgia's moves vis-a-vis Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been more ambiguous, though. While he praised Ivanishvili's offer of an apology, he later told the de facto foreign minister of South Ossetia that "the decisions of 2008 will not change," referring to Moscow's formal recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in that year.

The heavy geopolitical stakes of the election have stoked fears that Russia could intervene in the case of a result it doesn't like, something it has repeatedly done around the post-Soviet world.

'Shameful' And 'Disgusting'

Russia itself has stoked those fears. In August, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) published a statement warning that the United States is seeking to provoke a "Maidan" scenario in Georgia and install the opposition in power even if Georgian Dream wins the elections. It was immediately following Ukraine's Maidan revolution in 2013-4 that Russia annexed Crimea and stoked separatism in eastern Ukraine.

The United States was trying to not allow "healthy, nationally oriented forces" to have power in Georgia, SVR's chief Sergei Naryshkin, told journalists on October 3. But, he added, "I am sure that the Georgian people will make the right choice."

When Georgian Dream rolled out the "no war" ads, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry objected, as did the EU ambassador to Georgia, Pawel Herczynski, who called the ads "outrageous," "shameful," and "disgusting."

But the ads are now ubiquitous around Tbilisi: on billboards, the sides of buses, and in the subway. Television ads, putting the images to dramatic music, are also showing on pro-government stations.

A group of pro-opposition stations, however, have refused to air them. "We have no intention of supporting, even indirectly, the Russian propaganda of Georgian Dream or the mockery of the Ukrainian people," the stations said in a joint statement.