The West should worry about Georgia’s broken democracy

It is the first display of political instability in the Caucasus in 2021. Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia on Thursday announced his unexpected resignation.

Although his successor has yet to be confirmed, his replacement will be the country’s sixth Prime Minister in eight years. All, including Gakharia, have been members of the same party, Georgian Dream, that has held parliamentary control since 2012.

The founder of the party, the formerly reclusive billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, was the first Georgian Dream Prime Minister. He only held the post for a year, claiming he had achieved his political objectives after twelve months. This was treated with a degree of scepticism that was later proved justified. Ivanishvili retained the post of party chairman and his successors have been widely seen as his personal appointments, with their seemingly inevitable resignations equating to dismissal.

This seems to be the case with Gakharia. The departing PM claims that his abdication stems from a rift in the party over his reluctance to arrest the opposition heavyweight Nika Melia, whose apparent failure to pay his outstanding bail costs over a charge of inciting violence in 2019 led to the issuance of a warrant.