Source: https://newgreenhorizons.us/howie-hawkins-dispatches-from-europe-georgia/

As Kermit the Frog famously said, “It’s not easy being Green.” That is true in Georgia as well as America. Georgian Greens are as familiar with Kermit’s lament as we are. Just to reinforce what I said in my last dispatch about how most Americans don’t know there is a country called Georgia, besides customer service rep for my international phone plan, I also had the same problem with customer service from my bank, which will not do overseas transactions on my debit card unless I tell them beforehand. When I told the bank customer service rep I needed to pre-authorize payments in Georgia, she tried to explain that wasn’t necessary because Georgia was in the United States. When I told her there was also a country called Georgia, she did find it on her list of countries and exclaimed she never knew. When I told that story to Merab Sharabidze, a former Green Party member of the Georgian parliament, he shared that when he went to a U.S. government sponsored meeting on environmental issues in Washington, D.C. in the 1990s, it had taken him a while to convince the American official registering him for the conference that he was from the nation, not the state, of Georgia. He had to point to a picture on the wall of President Bill Clinton with Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze to convince the official. Just because Americans don’t know about the country of Georgia doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. The results of the election in Georgia tomorrow will have ramifications throughout the East Europe and West Asia region. Will Georgia turn toward Europe and liberal democracy, or toward a Russia-dominated autocracy? The ruling conservative Georgia Dream party is hoping to get elected on a socially conservative program of Orthodox Christian family values including discrimination against LGBTQ people and of avoiding Russian military intervention if Georgia votes the “wrong” way. The opposition, led by the independent President, Salome Zourabichvili, is a contentious coalition of many parties that really only agree on one thing: liberal democracy and EU membership for Georgia. Last night, I had dinner with three leaders of the Greens Party of Georgia: General Secretary Gia Gachechiladze, International Secretary Merab Sharabidze, and Guram Nikoleishvili, a member of the party’s executive committee. Guram was my guest on the Green Socialist Notes podcast on June 29 to talk about the massive street protests in Tbilisi against the foreign agents registration law, which civil society organizations and activists fear will enable the state to crush their activities as Russia has used a similar law to silence all political and anti-war opposition to Putin. The Greens Party of Georgia does not have candidates in tomorrow’s election. The party’s General Secretary, Gia Gachechiladze, was involved in negotiations with the other parties in which President Zourabichvili was playing match maker for the opposition coalition. But the Greens failed to get any of their candidates listed on a common slate under the Georgia’s fully proportional system where 150 members of parliament are elected by closed party or coalitions lists from a single national constituency, with a 5% electoral threshold to be awarded seats. All the slates sere finalized only about ta month ago for an election campaign that is obviously much shorter than American election campaigns. The Greens decided not to run anyone because as one of the few parties not sponsored by a wealthy oligarch, they wouldn’t get any media coverage because the major media organizations are owned by the oligarchs that sponsor the other parties. They said the social media platforms are also tough for them, too, because they are also owned by oligarchs, just like Elon Musk owns X, formerly Twitter. The Greens Party did qualify in 2024 as a registered party that could have run candidates because they submitted a petition that required 30,000 signatures. The party itself has about 3,000 formal members, but only about 100 who are consistent activists. Completing the 30,000-signature petition shows the Greens still have energy and public support. But they have little money. Instead of oligarch funding, the Greens rely on membership dues. But given the economic hard times Georgia faces, the party has suspended collecting dues until economic conditions improve. They will observe the election tomorrow and then turn their focus to local elections next year. The Greens Party of Georgia is the oldest party in Georgia. It is a founding member of the European Green Party, the federation of Green parties in the European Parliament. It got its start in the last years of the Soviet Union when it campaigned from 1989 to 1992 for multi-party democratic elections and independence for Georgia. In the first parliamentary elections in 1992, the Greens elected 11 members to the parliament. A Green member of parliament, Zurab Zhvania, switched to Shevardnadze’s ruling party in the 1995 election and became the chair of the parliament until 2001, when he broke with Shevardnadze over corruption. Zhvania formed a new party with Mikheil Saakashvili and would become prime minister with Saakashvili as President from 2003 to 2005. But Zhvania died in 2005 under suspicious circumstances that his family and many observers believe was an assassination. After Zhavania’s death, the Greens had no one in the government to protect them from the increasingly corrupt and repressive United National Movement of Saakashvili, whose goons raided and smashed up the Greens Party offices in 2007. In 2010, the Greens were part of the Georgia Dream coalition, which at that time was the pro-democracy force that rose up to drive Saakashvili and his UNM from power. The Greens Party’s International Secretary, Merab Sharabidze, was the Green on the Georgia Dream’s election slate and served in parliament until 2020. His business card from his days in the parliament identifies his parliamentary faction as “Georgia Dream – Greens.” The Greens left Georgia Dream because it became more authoritarian and pro-Russian. The current General Secretary, Gia Gachechiladze, has held his position as leader of the party since 2008. Merab and Gia appear to be in their sixties. Guram looks to be 30 something. I enjoyed eating and drinking with them. We ate Georgian fare, including a Georgian pizza, meat filled dumplings, spinach balls of spinach and spices, and cheese and fruit. They drank vodka and beer. I don’t drink alcohol, but I went through three cups of coffee, which I definitely needed after traveling east through two nights in 24 hours from New York to Georgia (the nation) and thoroughly confusing my jet-lagged biorhythms. We toasted repeatedly to the Green Party and to peace, with the threat of another Russian military intervention in Georgia, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and Israel’s war on Palestine on our minds. They explained to me their view that Russia’s first military intervention in 1992-1993 in which Russia occupied the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was in retaliation for Georgia permitting a pipeline for Azerbaijan gas to go through Georgia to Armenia, then Turkey, and on to Europe. The Russians had wanted Azerbaijan to send its gas through Georgia and then north through Russia and Ukraine to Europe in order to make Europe fully dependent on Russian gas exports. The 2008 Russian war in Georgia, the Georgian Greens said, was precipitated by George W. Bush’s declaration that Georgia and Ukraine should become part of NATO. Russia then recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent, although the international community does not. The three Greens I met with were divided on whether the governing or opposition coalition would win and what the consequences would be. The younger Guram was the optimist, thinking the opposition would win and open up political space for the Greens that the repressive Georgia Dream government is closing down. Gia and Merab thought Georgia Dream would win, but were not so worried that it would lead to the suppression of Green politics. Gia said the Greens survived the Saakashvili’s violent attack on the Green Party offices in 2007, so they can handle another Georgia Dream government led this time by its oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Merab felt Ivanishvili’s threat to shut down the pro-European opposition parties was just campaign rhetoric. Merab said that as the oldest Georgian party with an honorable history in winning democracy and independence for Georgia in the early 1990s and with Greens’ veterans from that period still active, he didn’t think Ivanishvili would dare go after the Greens. We will soon know whose predictions are more accurate.

The EGP member parties meet in Dublin December 6th-8th. Several resolutions on the genocide in Gaza were proposed and there is now ageeement on using the FYEG (federation of young european greens) resolution as a blueprint:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/632ad1fcd00c211cf0c45893/t/672b55134914b12c689f3bd9/1730893075998/R3+Palestine+Israel+v2.pdf

The swedish, norwegian, english and welsh are among member parties working on amending the resolution to be harsher towards Israel, will be interesting to see where the congress ends up. There is a pretty strong culture for consensus in the amendment sessions and my experience is that smaller member parties get more than their fair share of the floor if they want to.