The media coverage borders on the farcical. Loaded with 5 eyes NATO media condemnation alongside veiled threats. I’m particularly gripped by Zelensky’s condemnation.
“As of today, Russia won in Georgia. (Russia) took their freedom away,” Zelensky said in comments published by the presidency.
Considering he’s ended Ukrainian elections, has enacted martial law as well as forced military conscription in Ukraine… The freedom bringer Zelensky a light in the darkness– or something along those lines 😉
The President Salome Zourabichvili is a French citizen, born in Paris.
A citizen of France for most of her life, a career French diplomat who became a Georgian citizen and started her own political party-
Of course she is leading the charge of election fraud. Of course. She is providing all the “right” talking points to western media- Of course.
“I swear that I will stand with you on this European path until the end” – President of Georgia
We’ve been informed of the allowable parameters of discussion via her spoon fed to the media talking points, all of them sounding as if they’ve come right out of US state department via Brussels. I’m trying to find something readable! Thank goodness for the piece below from Responsible Statecraft!
An unfortunate rush to judgment in Georgia elections
The Western media is indulging the preassembled narrative: that the only way the government could win was by rigging
That’s sooo obvious!
One did not have to be an Elijah or an Amos to predict the aftermath of the Georgian elections, but all the same, the Quincy Institute and Responsible Statecraft can claim a modest prize for prophecy. The domestic and international background to the elections and the ensuing crisis are analyzed in a QI policy brief published earlier this month; and as I wrote for RS back in July:
“Parliamentary elections are due in Georgia on October 26, and the universal opinion among Georgians with whom I have spoken is that if the government wins, the opposition, backed by pro-Western NGOs, will allege that the results were falsified, and will launch a mass protest movement in an effort to topple the Georgian Dream government. Judging by recent statements, most Western establishments will automatically take the side of the opposition. This narrative is already well underway, with lines like ‘Government vs. the People in Georgia’ and ‘a crisis that has pitted the government against its people.’ This suggests that Georgia is a dictatorship in which ‘the people’ have no say except through street protests.”
Good foresight back in July!
This is exactly what has happened. According to the results issued by the National Election Commission, the governing Georgian Dream Party won 53 percent of the vote to 38 percent for the different opposition parties. The opposition, however, immediately alleged fraud, and declared that its MPs would boycott the new parliament, thereby depriving it of a quorum.
The pro-opposition President, Salome Zourabichvili, stated that Georgians were “victims of what can only be described as a Russian special operation – a new form of hybrid warfare waged against our people and our country.” However, when asked by Western journalists to substantiate this, she could only say that the government had used “Russian methodology.”
Her people? Her country? Is she talking about that absurd French election? Remember those? Yah, Macron is still there! Can you hear the crickets?
She mixed accusations of electoral falsification with an appeal for “the firm support of our European and American partners to the part of Georgia that is European, that is the Georgian population.” This is a quite different argument. It implies that whatever the results of the elections, the only real “Georgian population” is the part that identifies with the West. Only their voice is truly legitimate, and a government that does not unconditionally follow the “European Path” is inherently illegitimate, elections or no elections.
Much of the Western media immediately responded with headlines like “Georgians join mass rally” and “Georgians protest contested election results,” suggesting (without directly asserting) that this is indeed a case of “the people” against a government, as if the government has no real support at all – despite the fact that even if the government’s election victory is contested, there can be no doubt at all that a very large proportion of the Georgian population voted for them.
The Biden administration and other Western governments and institutions have not even waited for detailed reports from their own observers to call the election results into question. Moreover, it must be stated with regret that many of these observers can hardly be called objective.
Please do read the rest of the responsible statecraft piece at the link provided