The Georgian parliamentary election

This report analyses the 2024 Georgian Parliamentary election as the ninth paper in the series ‘Global Democracy in the Age of Disruption’, focusing on the impact of digital technologies on democratic processes in the year of elections. The qualitative analysis of this report focuses on three key areas. First, the state of the nation section addresses the events leading up to and directly following the election, including the impact of social media and platform politics, and the interaction of these technologies on the historically constructed Georgian national identity. Next, the second section provides an overview of the key players in the path to power, detailing the lead candidates, their political platforms, and the ideological distinctions between Georgia's major political coalitions. Finally, the report concludes with a reflection of the role of digital technologies within the protest movement following the election and the expansion of Georgian Dream’s restrictive control in the country, including the impact of extra-legal violence on stifling freedom of speech, and the use of digital platforms for computational propaganda - marking an authoritarian turn in the country. The significant resistance shown by Georgia’s robust and engaged civil society indicates, however, that democratic values, for a broad section of society at least, continue to define hopes for the country’s future. As such, we describe the deferral of Georgia’s European dream through the ruling party, rather than its outright denial.