In Tbilisi
Russia has long lost the hearts of 3.7 million Georgians.
But the new crisis shaking this Caucasian country at the start of 2021 is just a new episode in a sequence opened on June 20, 2019 after a Russian Communist deputy, Sergei Gavrilov, sat in the chair of the Speaker of the Georgian National Parliament.
Gavrilov was then due to open a meeting of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy and had found it natural to sit in said chair.
This had led to weeks of protest in Georgia, the country considering that Russia "
occupies
" 20% of its national territory through its presence and its support for the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
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In 2019, the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament had to resign, after not having found anything abnormal in a Russian deputy sitting in his chair.
This time, it is the Prime Minister, Guiorgui Gakharia, who is leaving his post.
He claims to disagree with the rest of the leadership team, believing that the decision to lift the parliamentary immunity of Nika Mélia, the leader of the main opposition party (the United National Movement of ex-president Mikhail Saakashvili) could cause a risky rise in tension for the country.
Politicized justice
On February 16, the Parliament, controlled by the Georgian Dream party of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, lifted Nika Mélia's immunity.
The vote paved the way for a decision by a court in Tbilisi on Wednesday to sentence the opposition leader to preventive prison.
Nika Mélia is accused of not having paid a deposit for having withdrawn her electronic bracelet a few months ago.
But the heart of the matter dates back to the night of June 20 to 21, 2019 when Nika Mélia, in the midst of hundreds of demonstrators, tried to invade Parliament.
In recent days, Mr. Gavrilov has added fuel to the fire.
He praised the ruling party, which he said is doing “
its best to prevent coups, repression and dictatorship in the country
”.
From then on, all the opposition parties had a nice game behind Nika Mélia to denounce a Georgian justice under the orders of Moscow.
Justice too often politicized in recent years.
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This new political crisis comes in a tense context in the South Caucasus.
Russia has strengthened its hold there more than ever, during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh last October and November between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
This conflict has also allowed Erdogan's Turkey, another at the very least authoritarian neighbor, to strengthen in this region.
At the same time, the Georgian parliamentary elections of October 31 led to a political crisis.
The victory of the Georgian Dream was so contested that no opposition party agreed to sit in parliament.
This Thursday, the Georgian Dream appointed Irakli Garibashvili to take the head of government.
This 38-year-old francophone already held the position from 2013 to 2015, leaving poor memories.
"
He does not have the build, it is only a factotum of Ivanichvili"
, explains a Western diplomat familiar with the mysteries of Georgian politics.