Georgian Dream's Confidence Clashes with Opposition Unity Calls: A Prelude to the 2024 Parliamentary Elections

By Malkhaz Matsaberidze

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Along with the recommendation of the EU candidate status from the European Commission, Georgia received 9 enforceable reservations, among which special importance is attached to the fair holding of the 2024 parliamentary elections.

There is about a year left before the elections. The Georgian Dream and the pro-Western opposition have named their desired and probable results of the elections.

The Georgian Dream announces in advance that after the elections it will remain alone at the head of the government, while the opposition hopes to change the government and declares that a coalition of pro-Western parties will come to the head of the government.

The issue of the likely result of the 2024 elections became relevant after the results of the study by Edison Research commissioned by Formula TV station were published. As a result of this research, the first place was taken by the Georgian Dream with a rating of 37%, followed by The United National Movement/Strategy Agmashenebeli" with 21%, Gakharia's For Georgia with 9%, then Lelo with 5% and four with 4% - Party Girchi/Droa, Labor Party, For the people and Girchi (Iago Khvichia).

Next came three 3% parties (Alt-Info, People's Power, Citizens), and at the end of the list were Patriots Alliance with 2% and European Georgia with 1%.

It is still far from the elections, but such a rating shows that the Georgian Dream does not have the support of the majority and the coalition of pro-Western parties looks much more promising.

The opposition political parties in the next places, including those with a 4% result, are Western-oriented parties, which, if they find themselves at the head of the government, we must assume that they will easily agree on the fulfillment of EU reservations. But here comes in the question of the current election law, which is becoming the main barrier for the opposition.

The parliamentary elections of 2024 will be held proportionally, under the conditions of a 5% threshold. If the next parliamentary elections end with the results mentioned above, only three political forces will enter the parliament, and a large part of the votes will be 'lost', in particular, they will be distributed to the parties that passed the parliament, and the most seats will again go to Georgian Dream.

In this case, the Georgian Dream will have a majority of 78 members in the 150-member parliament.

The publication of the mentioned results of the study again led to calls for the opposition to unite, but so far this has not resulted, because a large part of the opposition spectrum agrees on the Western orientation, but they also have some disagreements among themselves, of a political and personal nature, and the 4% parties hope that 5% support will be ensured before the elections.

They are well aware that the more opposition parties enter the parliament, the fewer seats Georgian Dream will have.

The opposition also remembered the earlier promise of the Georgian Dream - if we get the status of a candidate for EU membership, we will reduce the electoral threshold to 3%. The parliament has already adopted the corresponding constitutional amendment in the first reading. However, representatives of the Georgian Dream categorically rejected the possibility of reducing the barrier.

They named several arguments, some said that the opposition is irresponsible and small radical parties cannot be allowed into the parliament, others think that if the party cannot collect 5%, it looks frivolous and it is not worth their entry into the parliament.

The Chairman of the Parliament even called the request to lower the electoral threshold 'begging'. The named arguments are not of great importance, the main point being that the Georgian Dream will not reduce the electoral threshold. The governing political power has considered the issue of reducing the barrier, and according to studies, it is not getting the desired results.

The reaction of the leaders of the Georgian Dream to the results of the Edison Research study was also interesting. They categorically rejected and ridiculed the prospect of creating a coalition government, which the opposition was actively discussing. The leaders of the Georgian Dream considered Edison Research's study to be falsified and unanimously declared that they would win again in the 2024 parliamentary elections, and with a big advantage - they also spoke about having a constitutional majority in the next parliament.

In other words, they say that nothing will change as a result of the elections and they will do whatever they want in the next parliament as well. In order to give more credibility to such statements, the TV company 'Imedi' published the results of the research conducted by Gorbi, where the number of supporters of Georgian Dream was named as 55%. The results of the "Gorbi" research have already turned out to be doubtful for the opposition.

In the meantime, the results of the International Republican Institute (IRI) research were published, according to which the support of the Georgian Dream is represented by 25%, the National Movement by 13%, and the rest of the parties are not able to overcome the 5% barrier. These research results pour cold water on both the current government and the opposition.

Let's leave the specific percentages, especially since the results of many different studies will be published before the elections, with kaleidoscopic changes in the percentages. Research has highlighted another interesting trend - the unpromising nature of the open pro-Russian spectrum. According to a study by Edison Research, Alt-Info and People's Power have shown a 3% support rate, with Patriot Alliance showing 2%. They cannot replace the Georgian Dream separately, however, in case of unification, they may overcome the 5% barrier and play the role of a junior partner of the Georgian Dream in the next parliament.