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08-10-2025 - Le elezioni comunali del 4 ottobre possono essere locali, ma ogni georgiano sa che hanno un peso nazionale, un test per capire dove sta andando il Paese, intrappolato tra il sogno europeo della sua gioventù e i legami ancora visibili del governo con la Russia

The October 4th municipal elections may be local, but every Georgian knows they carry national weight — a test of where the country is heading, caught between the European dream of its youth and the government’s still-visible ties to Russia.

Tbilisi, in the days before the vote, felt strangely calm. The streets were quiet, almost too quiet, until you turned a corner and stumbled onto a flash mob: traffic blocked for a few minutes, slogans shouted, a quick retreat before the police arrived. I’ve been in Tbilisi for several weeks, and the city didn’t feel like it was in campaign mode.
A few posters, some chatter, but little else. The real noise came from the walls, not the squares.
Georgian Dream banner dominated every metro station and main avenue.
The opposition, by contrast, barely showed its face. On television, debates were predictable — for or against the government, nothing in between.

Still, the meaning of this vote was clear. On paper, it was a municipal election, but Tbilisi holds over a third of the country’s population. Whoever controls the capital controls the narrative. Georgian Dream has done so for two terms already, and this vote looked more like a referendum than a real contest. The opposition was divided, partly absent by choice, and since last year international observers have warned of flawed procedures and an uneven playing field.

The most recognizable face in the race was Kakha Kaladze — former AC Milan defender, two-time Champions League winner, nine years at San Siro. Football made him a national hero long before politics did.
After serving as Minister of Energy and Deputy Prime Minister, he sought a third term as mayor. Behind him, though, loomed Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of Georgian Dream — officially retired, unofficially omnipresent.
With dual Georgian-French citizenship and personal wealth worth roughly a third of the national GDP, Ivanishvili remains the real power behind the curtain. His political machine is disciplined, his relationship with Moscow deliberately opaque.

And that’s where the unease begins. In the run-up to the vote, new cameras and barricades appeared around Parliament, as if the government were quietly bracing for unrest. Last year, protests targeted police violence; this time, the anger was directed at those in charge. Here, people have grown used to demonstrating before the results are even known — as if mistrust itself had become part of the democratic ritual, but also because that result was clear.

In early September, a taxi driver told me flatly: “On October 4th there will be a revolution.” At the time, I smiled it off. Weeks later, I realized he was simply voicing a wider feeling — that something was bound to give.

Scratch the surface and the picture becomes sharper. Georgian Dream has ruled since 2012 and faces two recurring accusations: democratic regression and covert ties to Moscow. Civil society groups and opposition figures denounce the politicization of institutions; the EU and OSCE have repeatedly criticized the government for poor transparency and for inviting international monitors so late that real oversight becomes impossible. Officially, the party speaks the language of Europe. In practice, it walks a line that bends toward the Kremlin. Russia still occupies 20 percent of Georgia’s territory, but few in government seem eager to challenge that reality — perhaps prudently so.

Among ordinary people, the divide is generational. Many Georgians under 35 are openly anti-Russian — not only because of the 2008 war, but because they’ve moved on culturally.
They speak English, not Russian, and see Brussels as their natural destination. The government echoes that ambition, but real progress toward the EU has been frozen for two years.
Meanwhile, trade and business links with Russia remain quietly alive. The contradiction is plain: a country that dreams of Europe, governed by leaders who promise it but never push too hard to reach it.

Georgia, however, has never lacked a sense of identity. Unlike other former Soviet republics, it didn’t have to invent one after independence — Georgia has always been Georgia. For two centuries it has fought to preserve its language, its Church, its culture. Independence here is not a new chapter, but a return to an old truth. Perhaps that’s why many Georgians find the government’s closeness to Moscow so hard to stomach: it clashes with the very idea of who they are.

Tbilisi itself mirrors all these contradictions. Some districts could be Berlin twenty years ago — young, messy, creative. Others are still stuck in Soviet concrete. Then suddenly, you find yourself in a sleek glass building with a wine bar and a start-up accelerator inside. The city is an open metaphor for the country: proud, restless, divided between past and future.

Now that the results are out, it’s clear that the “revolution” never came. Kaladze won with 71 percent of the vote. In many districts, Georgian Dream scored above 90 percent. Even for a conservative nation, those are astonishing numbers. In Sagarejo’s District 11 — and in several other municipalities — the ruling party reached 100 percent, running unopposed.

There’s no confirmed turnout figure, but based on the data available, around one million Georgians cast their vote — roughly a quarter of the population.
Considering the groups of forty-something men in black, standing outside many polling stations with intimidating expressions, the figure isn’t surprising.

In Tbilisi, protests erupted soon after: clashes broke out mainly in Liberty Square, around Orbeliani Market, and near the presidential residence. Police responded with rubber bullets, water cannons, and tear gas.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze accused the demonstrators of attempting to overthrow the government and blamed foreign interference, while former President Salomé Zourabichvili described the assault on the palace as “a mockery … staged by the regime to discredit 310 days of peaceful protest.”

It wasn’t a revolution — but it wasn’t a stroll either
For now, nothing changes. Georgians have chosen the status quo. The government’s reaction was calculated — firm enough to maintain control, yet restrained enough to avoid making too much noise abroad. Tbilisi was careful not to draw unwanted attention from Brussels or Washington, but also not to hand the opposition and protesters a casus belli on a silver platter, perhaps even infiltrating or steering the demonstrations to manage them.

Why risk provoking Moscow? Why rush to join a Union that might take a decade to open its doors, with no guarantees of protection or membership? What for? Is the opposition even strong enough to lead? The prevailing mood feels pragmatic, almost fatalistic: We are Georgians. Our identity is not in danger. We’re here. We’re surviving. All is good.
Georgian Dream undoubtedly enjoys more genuine support than the opposition is willing to admit — or perhaps it has simply mastered the art of securing it.
Either way, the message is clear: Georgia remains suspended between pragmatism and pressure, between the illusion of calm and the memory of unrest, choosing the preservation of its identity above all else.

Is there interference from outside? Perhaps. Do people care right now? Not really — life goes on, the cafés stay full, the mountains stand still. Maybe tomorrow things will change, and when that happens, those flawless election numbers will start to look like history. But for now, calm prevails — a calm less about peace than about endurance.

++Giordano Gomato
 is an independent international relations consultant, previously with the United Nations and active across diplomatic and multilateral financial institutions. He holds Master’s degrees from City University London, LUISS School of Government, and Roma Tre University. Fluent in English, French, Spanish, German, and Russian.

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