On 4 October 2025, local elections were held in Tbilisi that saw the predictable reappointment of former AC Milan player Kakha Kaladze as mayor of Tbilisi for a third term in the ranks of Georgian Dream, the party that has been in power in the country for 13 years. Similar results were seen in the other localities of the country where voters were called to the polls, in an election that saw the ruling party find itself essentially unopposed, given the boycott of the elections by most of the opposition.

The elections took place in an atmosphere of general tension that followed 310 days of continuous protests on Rustaveli Avenue, the main street of Tbilisi where the parliament is located, the meeting point of the protesters for democracy and European integration.

The divided opposition

Eight opposition parties boycotted the elections: United National Movement, Agmashenebeli Strategy, Girchi – More Freedom, Droa, Akhali, Federalists, Liberty Square and European Georgia. The authorities arrested the leaders of almost all the main movements, many of whom are serving short sentences for refusing to appear before a parliamentary committee considered illegitimate by the rest of the political landscape.
The only two opposition forces that participated in the vote, Lelo/Strong Georgia and For Georgia, failed to impose significant outcomes, despite having expressed a single candidate, namely Irakli Kupradze, as mayor of Tbilisi. Significantly, the leaders of these two formations also had to repair abroad or were previously arrested and then released in the run-up to the polls for refusing to appear before the same commission.

A year of repression and arrests

The elections were held in a climate of intimidation also summarised by EU High Representative Kaja Kallas and EU Commissioner Marta Kos, who denounced in a joint statement months of attacks on the independent media, laws against civil society, arbitrary arrests of opponents and changes to the electoral law in favour of the government.

The authorities initially excluded international monitoring missions, such as the OSCE/ODIHR, undermining the transparency of the electoral process. A formal invitation was sent only three weeks before the vote, but the OSCE stated that the time available was too short to organize an adequate and effective observation mission. Georgian transparency organisations have also refrained from monitoring due to intimidation.

The attack on the Presidential Palace

Not long after the protests began, several hundred protesters attempted to storm the Presidential Palace demanding the resignation of the Georgian government, which they considered illegitimate. Massive police forces used water cannons and tear gas as the protesters tried to reach the courtyard outside the government residence. The protests then continued late into the night in the streets of the centre with numerous clashes between protesters protected by gas masks and special forces units of the Georgian police.

The consequences: new arrests among opposition leaders

Five organisers of the 4 October rally in Tbilisi, including opera singer and activist Paata Burchuladze, were arrested. Among those arrested were also opponents Irakli Nadiradze and Murtaz Zodelava (of the UNM party), Paata Manjgaladze(Agmashenebeli Strategy) and former colonel Lasha Beridze. The official toll is six protesters and 21 officers injured, one in serious condition. Reconfirmed mayor Kakha Kaladze spoke of a ‘direct coup attempt’, while premier Irakli Kobakhidze promised that ‘every person involved will be punished’.

5 October 2025: Georgia still in the square

Despite threats by the Ministry of the Interior to consider and prosecute any subsequent protest as a continuation of the organised attack of 4 October, the Georgian people took to the streets again, for the 312th consecutive day of protest.European integration for the Georgian people is indeed perceived as a matter of life and death, so much so that it is mentioned directly in the country’s constitution.

After the first protests in the spring of 2024, triggered by the then successful attempt to introduce a Foreign Agents Law on the Russian model, demonstrations in front of Parliament became daily when the ruling party inOctober 2024 reneged on all promises of European integration by halting the accession procedures initiated two years earlier.

Europeanism: a matter of life and death

For Georgians, membership of theEuropean Union represents a model of freedom and democracy, a way to permanently distance themselves from the orbit of Russia, of which Georgia had been a part since 1921 as a Soviet republic.
Independent since 1989, after the 9 April massacre, the Caucasian nation faced two civil wars in the early 1990s and theRussian invasion in 2008, which led to the creation of the puppet states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Today, Georgian youth, supported by large sections of the population, are defending democratic achievements and calling for European political support with targeted sanctions against the perpetrators of repression, until the country returns to democracy and the rule of law. Let us raise its voice as much as possible and help it politically.