I'm so sick of war. I'm 23 years old, give me a break!
Russia is going to use this as a reason to invade the rest of Georgia.
And they have no reason to when the present government is anxious to maintain good relations with Russia and the protesters show no signs of being able to overthrow the government.
Georgians are the French of the Caucasus after all, and will go out to protest for anything. A true "Euromaidan moment" would likely only emerge if GD wins the October elections by unfair means in a way that seems inconsistent with the public sentiment.
As governing party in Georgia, you can always rig elections a bit in a way that they don't lose their legitimacy at large, but if you rig them in a way that is too obviously fraudulent, you're likely to get an explosive reaction.
In 2012, Saakashvili's UNM lost the election by such a margin that even marginal vote buying in select precincts couldn't alter the overall outcome (55-40 or so), and that's the only time ever a peaceful transfer of power happened. After riggery was to blatant in 2003 (with results diverging way too much from parallel counts), public sentiment went really hard after Shevardnadze and he was forced to resign.
GD's strategy seems to make the elections as legitimate as possible while favoring themselves, while simultaneously doing all they can to disperse potential protests that will emerge post October:
- raise the threshold to 5 % and ban electoral blocs (though the latter can be circumvented by dual party memberships)
- keep bloating the civil sector on govt. payroll (some villages with a population of 500 in Kakheti have 3 state-employed tourist office workers that also feed their families...)
- switch to electronic vote counting (in a way that you will have to still cast your vote manually and mark the field of your preferred party thickly rather than do the classical tick/cross - which was criticized by several NGOs as voter intimidation, as you don't put your ballot in an envelope - Now if you're said state-employed tourist office worker in that village with GD-only representatives at the election office - which happens in many cases, as other parties lack the infrastructure to send representatives to every precinct - who would you vote for?)
- brand such NGOs (including election watchdogs and parallel count overseers) as "
Foreign Agents Organization of Foreign Influence"
Suspiciously, the GD Mayor of Tbilisi ordered major construction and renovation works to take place on Rustaveli Avenue beginning in autumn. Guess what takes place that month and what this street is usually famous for?
Say what you want about GD, they're vile, reckless, authoritarian, maybe sometimes naive (though that could very well just be testing public mood), but they're hella smart. Power for themselves and Ivanishvili (they're not classical politicians but often acquaintances, friends, confidantes of Ivanishvili and his personal circles) is all they care for, and they will be careful to not start killing protestors like Yanukovych did. They'd be cooked.
Even if the current mood is anti-GD, that doesn't mean the disunited, toxic and unpopular opposition will truly benefit from it by October. But it was reported that GD leadership is very well aware that this will cost them votes, but they chose to slam it through nonetheless.
Anecdotal evidence, but it seems like the UNM really fell off (a trend that some polls showed, though take them with a giant grain of salt) and their decreasing relevance can only be good for the opposition. My die-hard Saakashvili supporting cousin will vote for Ahali, a friend whose grandparents are also hardcore UNM voters will vote for Ahali and Lelo respectively, two parties that don't have the massive toxicity that UNM carries (which would keep GD in power forever).
So, tldr, this is not Euromaidan 2.0 yet, but a Euromaidan-like scenario could await us in October/November.
