Keep the Caucasus safe from Russia

AYEAR AGOEUEUEUEU Europe still hoped to fasten Georgia, once seen as a vital island of democracy in the Caucasus, to the West. In December 2023 it was formally recognised by the European Union as a candidate for full membership. Since then, almost everything has .First, in May, the ruling Georgian Dream party passed a law requiring organisations that received money from abroad to register as “foreign agents”, a trick used in Russia and in Hungary, under the autocratic Viktor Orban, to harass pro-democracy outfits. Georgian Dream is led by a reclusive billionaire-oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made a fortune in Moscow in the 1990s before returning home. He has tried to position his country in equipoise between Russia and the West, but has found himself under Vladimir Putin’s thumb. The said in May that the new law looked as if Georgia were wriggling out of its pre-membership promises to reform, not least because the new conditions would hamstring independent election monitors. And the general election in October was indeed far from fair. Plausible claims of ballot-rigging, biased state media, threats to ban opposition parties and the intimidation of voters were well enough documented for the European Parliament to reject the result and call for a fresh poll. Georgia’s president, Salome Zourabichvili, also called the election illegitimate.Georgian Dream responded on November 28th by suspending the country’s accession talks with the , triggering vast demonstrations in the capital, Tbilisi, and many other cities besides. The police have responded with beatings and arrests. Amnesty International says it has verified “numerous instances of torture and other ill-treatment, several of which also revealed the organised and systemic nature of these abuses”.As the protests and thuggery persist, a crisis looms. Georgia’s next president must be chosen by an electoral college consisting of the parliament plus regional representatives. Ms Zourabichvili, whose term ends on December 29th, says that parliament is illegal and refuses to stand down until it is replaced by a body that was elected fairly. Meanwhile the college, dominated by Georgian Dream, has chosen a new president, a former Manchester City footballer, in a vote with only a single candidate.How should the West respond? First, Ms Zourabichvili needs vocal and practical support for her brave refusal to hand her office to Russia’s choice. Those who support democracy should continue to recognise her, not her rival, as president. Second, those responsible for the violence and for cooking the election must be sanctioned. Some countries, including America, Ukraine and the Baltic states, have made a start, imposing travel bans on a few top officials, and in some cases on Mr Ivanishvili, who holds no government position. These could be reinforced by reaching further down the power structure (to cover those who run the state media, say), as well as extending them to the subjects’ families. Those most responsible should have their assets frozen.Two big omissions from the list of those imposing personal sanctions stand out. One is Britain. Like many other countries, it has halted most forms of official co-operation, but that hits mainly the innocent. The other is the . This week its impressive new foreign-affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, proposed a list of people for sanctioning, but her move was blocked by the vetoes of Hungary and Slovakia, both led by apologists for Mr Putin. If you needed an emblem of the ’s shameful weakness in the face of autocracy, that would be hard to beat.