How disinformation about the EU and Russia has flooded the election campaign in Georgia to influence the vote

The cover image contains photographs taken by Maldita.es of graffiti on the streets of Tbilisi, capital of Georgia. 

What's happening: Georgia will hold legislative elections to renew its parliament and government on the 26th October. Citizens have a choice between Georgian Dream, which is close to Moscow in its policies holding the majority in the Parliament, or one of the four coalitions of opposition parties, willing to continue the EU integration process.

Why this is important: During the election process, disinformation has been marked by the role of Russia and the European Union (EU) in the country. The process to join the EU was frozen in June 2024.

Disinformation: Maldita.es together with GRASS and Myth Detector, platforms that fight disinformation in Georgia, have analysed the main disinformation narratives that have circulated during the election campaign. These narratives include:

• If the opposition wins, it will supposedly end in a war with Russia and if Georgian Dream remains in power, peace will continue. 

• Georgia's rapprochement to the EU is due to Western pressure on the country through a so-called elite ‘global war party’.

• If Georgia joins the EU, farmers' land will be sold to foreign powers or opposition parties will be banned.

• The government minimizes Moscow's influence over Abkhazia and Ossetia, border territories over which it went to war with Russia in 2008.

• Attacks against the LGTBQ+ community, following the recent approval of a law banning their ‘propaganda’, and against ethnic minorities.

The government's narrative for the upcoming elections is that voters have to choose between ‘war’ if the opposition wins and ‘peace’ if Georgian Dream remains in power

Both Georgian Dream, the party currently in government, and the opposition have been the target of disinformation content that aims to discredit them and influence citizens' voting decisions, according to the team of Myth Detector, a platform against disinformation in Georgia and a member of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) like Maldita.es. The proximity of the war in Ukraine is one of the issues that disinformation has focused on.

One example of this is a narrative claiming that there is a ‘global war party’ in the West. This is a conspiracy theory that states that an alleged hidden elite, supposedly fomenting war, is controlling Western institutions and seeking to open a ‘second front’ of war with Russia by provoking a confrontation between that country and Georgia. According to Georgian Dream, the opposition is controlled by this alleged secret group.

Georgian Dream itself has also spread disinformation with manipulated videos of opposition leaders containing phrases calling for war, another singing an obscene song or alleged images of rallies without people. An alleged quote by Zelenski, of which there is no record, has also been circulated, saying that if the main opposition party were in power, Georgia ‘would have started a war’. Another manipulated video of a journalist supporting the war was also circulated. According to Georgian fact-checkers, the narrative spread by the ruling party is clear: if we do not win, war will break out in Georgia as well. The party poses these elections as a choice between war, if the opposition wins, or peace, if they remain in power. Election billboards show Ukrainian buildings destroyed by Russian shelling and Georgian buildings standing under the message ‘no war, choose peace’. 

In addition, the party of current prime minister Irakli Kobajidze ambiguously uses billboards with Georgian and EU flags under the slogan ‘with peace, dignity and prosperity towards Europe’.

Billboard of the ‘Georgian Dream’ party with the slogan ‘With peace, dignity, and prosperity towards Europe’ for the 26 October 2024 presidential elections in Georgia. Source: Maldita.es

On the other hand, election billboards supposedly from Georgian Dream have been circulating, but with manipulated slogans saying: ‘Only apologising, kneeling and surrendering to Russia’.

The Georgian fact-checking organisation GRASS tells Maldita.es that they have also detected ‘anti-Western propaganda’ from the government blaming the EU and the US for the situation in the country. ‘The [Georgian] government accuses the West of meddling in Georgia's electoral process while downplaying or ignoring Russian interference,’ the GRASS team has reported. Meanwhile, Russia's Intelligence Agency claims that the EU and the US may ‘interfere’ in the 26 October elections. According to this narrative, also detected by EUvsDisinfo (a platform of the EU External Action Service (EEAS) that analyses disinformation narratives circulating on the continent), the EU and the US are destabilising the Caucasus region.

According to a Middle East Institute report from July 2024, both Russia and Georgian Dream have spread messages warning of a destabilisation of the country similar to that in Ukraine if the opposition wins. According to another study by the Institute for War Studies (a non-profit organisation that studies defence and foreign affairs) in October 2024, Moscow is interfering to ensure a Georgian Dream victory. All polls say that Georgian Dream will be the party with the most votes, winning its third victory in the country.

Narratives about Georgia's rapprochement with the EU and how the West is influencing the country through the so-called ‘global war party’ group

‘The opposition draw the elections as a choice between the EU or Russia,’ the GRASS team tells Maldita.es, adding that “the government portrays EU criticism and the freezing of the accession process as retaliation for Georgia's resistance to Western influence”.

A 2021 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (a US non-profit organisation that studies international relations) indicates that Russia, in the face of Georgia's attempts to move closer to the EU, has launched ‘hybrid tools’, such as disinformation campaigns, to discredit the West. Research published in 2023 in the journal Europe-Asia Studies noted how anti-Western disinformation circulating in Georgia has been amplified by the media.

The debate over Georgia's EU membership dates back to 2022 when Georgia applied for membership and in December 2023 obtained candidate status, having fulfilled a series of steps set out by the European Commission. The first point was the ‘fight against disinformation and manipulation of foreign information against the EU and its values’. A poll by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC) published in December 2023 shows that since 2019 the feeling of a rapprochement with the EU would guarantee Georgia's national security has increased by eight points, to 29%. Moreover, 79% of citizens approve of EU integration, compared to 11% who disapprove.

However, the European Parliament passed a resolution in October of that year condemning the Georgian executive's ‘authoritarian agenda’. The European Council finally halted negotiations in June 2024 after the Georgian parliament passed a ‘foreign agents’ law. The ‘foreign agents’ law determines that NGOs and media that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad must register as organisations ‘defending the interests of a foreign power’ and come under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice. If they fail to do so, they face fines. This forced organisations such as Myth Detector, a platform contacted by Maldita.es, to register as a regional initiative and expand into other languages such as Estonian or German. 

It is a law similar to the one Russia passed in 2012 and strengthened after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. In June 2024 several opposition parties, including the second-placed National Movement, signed the so-called ‘Charter of Georgia’, a declaration to continue the country's EU integration process. 

The passage of the law sparked new citizen protests in Tbilisi, the country's capital. Some content claims that the protests were organised by ‘the US embassy’. The pro-government Georgian television station POSTV produced several documentaries to discredit the protests.

Source: Telegram.

The country's prime minister, Irakli Kobajidze, made false claims about this law when he indicated that the EU had passed a similar one, but it was stalled. Narratives are circulating about the regulation that target media critical of the government and opposition groups as ‘foreign agents’. Georgian Dream links the stalling of Georgia's EU accession to the influence of this alleged group that they call the ‘global war party’ in Brussels.

Narratives about the supposed negative consequences of Georgia's EU membership: agricultural land will be sold to foreign powers or opposition parties will be banned

Myth Detector and GRASS explain to Maldita.es that they have detected a ‘tendency’ in the government to manipulate issues ‘related to the economic progress’ of the country and its entry into the EU in order to ‘influence public opinion’. These narratives have been spread via ‘a vast infrastructure’ involving pro-government television stations, online media, social media profiles and influencers, according to the verifiers.

Regarding the alleged threat alluded to by Georgian Dream that if the country joins the EU some opposition parties will be banned, a number of the party’s leaders have claimed that in other European countries such as Spain, Ukraine or Moldova it is a ‘common practice’. In the content propagating this narrative with reference to Spain as an example, four parties are mentioned, three of which are parties in the Basque Country whose disappearance is not related to Spain's entry into the EU, but to their links with ETA: they are Acción Nacionalista Vasca, Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas and Batasuna.

Screenshot of a Facebook post by ‘Georgian Dream’ MP Nino Tsilosani. Source: Facebook - Myth Detector.

It has also been claimed that Moldova, after becoming a candidate for EU membership, will be forced to sell its agricultural land to foreigners if it continues with the accession process, when in reality EU law leaves decisions regarding agricultural land sale up to the member states themselves, added to this Moldova is not an EU country at the moment. The Georgian prime minister has also said that ‘Georgia is moving closer to the EU while Ukraine and Moldova are moving further and further away’, which is false because both countries applied to join the EU in 2022. 

Other Georgian Dream members have wrongly compared Georgia's level of poverty or equality before the law with other EU or NATO countries. In addition, a decontextualised statement from a member of the German parliament calling Georgian society ‘stupid’ after a visit was spread in the media and social networks, when in fact he was using slogans similar to those of Bill Clinton's 1992 US presidential campaign.

The government downplays Moscow's influence over the republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia has recognised as independent state since 2008

Georgia's president said in September 2024 that since 2012 Russia has made no territorial or economic progress there. In August 2008, Russia invaded two provinces bordering Russia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia, self-proclaimed independent provinces in 1992 and 1990, respectively. They have only been recognised as independent by five countries, including Russia, which did so in 2008 after initiating its invasion. Since 2012, Russia has not annexed any more of the country's territories, but it does maintain influence there.

A deepfake video circulated in September 2024 with Putin saying that Abkhazia is part of Georgia and that he had stopped funding the territory. According to GRASS, the original video used in the recording is from a 2023 event, where Putin did not mention the Abkhazia region at any point. According to Myth Detector, together with the de facto authorities of both provinces, Russia is undermining Georgian sovereignty there. 

Georgian Dream blames this conflict on the former National Movement government, now in opposition. In a Facebook post published on the anniversary of the conflict, the ruling party called for accountability. Frictions with Russia over these territories are particularly sensitive in the country also because of Georgia's economic dependence on Moscow in fields such as trade and energy.

Attacks against the LGTBQ+ community have also been circulating with the recent passing of the law banning their ‘propaganda’, and against ethnic minorities

In September 2024, the Tbilisi parliament passed a law to censor ‘LGTBQ propaganda’ in the country that restricts, among other measures, the right to association and demonstration, adoption, gender reassignment and equal marriage. 

The law has been condemned internationally by the Venice Commission, the European Union, Germany and the United States. According to the GRASS team, Georgian Dream says that ‘foreign powers’ want to ‘undermine Georgian identity and orthodox Christianity’ by supporting the LGTBQ+ collective. The narrative that the West is attacking traditional family values is a speech that has been broadcast on several television channels in the country in 2024. 

Xenophobic content and disinformation against the ethnic Armenian minority has also been circulated. The content attacks members of the opposition of Armenian origin. Some content included mentions of their physical appearance or messages ridiculing them. There are also disinformation campaigns specifically targeting these Russian-speaking ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijani minorities. One example is the Russian-language Facebook page ‘Javakian Diaspora of Russia’, which targets the Armenian minority of the Samtskhe-Javakheti region and spreads ‘anti-Western narratives’.

Disinformation has also crept into the world of football. On 11 October, a match was played between the Georgian national team and Ukraine. According to GRASS, hours before the match, disinformation was spread, claiming that those attending the event had to ‘kneel down’ before the Ukrainian team.