Is Georgia still willing to fight for its democracy?

On 4 October, voters in Georgia will be called to the polls to vote in the country’s municipal elections and choose a new cohort of local councillors and city mayors. How many citizens will actually turn out, though, remains to be seen: for many, after a steady erosion of democratic freedoms in Georgia, this vote carries little meaning.

Georgia’s elections in October last year cemented the dominance of the populist Georgian Dream party in parliament, but the vote’s outcome remains contested by the opposition. Tuesday marked the 300th consecutive day that citizens from across the country have gathered in major cities – every evening in Tbilisi, for example – demanding the annulment of the election results and the holding of a new vote. In this context, the current parliament, along with Ge