Talk:2024–2025 Georgian constitutional crisis

Which side are protestors on?

Currently the article says "Many people in Georgia have protested in the streets following the current president's refusal to step down." This sounds as if people are protesting against Zourabichvili's decision not to step down. I thought the protests were mostly in support of Zourabichvili. What do the sources say? Does the wording need to be clarified? (I had already edited the wording slightly before noticing this problem.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:04, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

@Coppertwig: That source is from 28 Dec, before the inauguration, and the whole paragraph by SimpleSubCubicGraph was extremely confusing. In this edit, I've tried to keep the main points from the text that actually match the source.

Regarding the question, it's rather Zourabichvili who is supporting the protestors than vice versa - the protestors primarily want (1) new, fair elections and (2) release of the detained protestors. Zourabichvili is continuing to support these goals based on all the more serious sources that I've seen. (She, probably wisely, chose to de-escalate any excuses for police violence by leaving the residence that she had moved to as the new presidential residence in Nov 2018, probably with the aim of keeping the focus on the protestors' aims rather than on her personally; I haven't seen this interpretation in a WP:RS (yet?).) And the mass protests did continue this evening 29 Dec, though we don't (yet) have that in the protests article. Boud (talk) 20:58, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I added a statement about the party's view as to whether it's pro-Russian or not, for balance. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:30, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Ivanishvili as effective ruler of Georgia

Since around 2021, Bidzina Ivanishvili has become increasingly clear, per the sources, as the de facto autocratic leader of Georgia. For convenience, here are the refs from the Ivanishvili article lead:

• title: "Oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili - the real ruler of Georgia and the architect of Georgia's pro-Russian shift"
• observers have said he left only to continue pulling the strings in the background, "He is sacrificing his country's democracy and EU integration for his wealth, and he will put all his resources into maintaining power. Because only staying in power can guarantee his well-being," said Gakharia.
• title: "Bidzina Ivanishvili: Georgia's billionaire 'puppet master' betting the house on Moscow"
• 'Ivanishvili likes to treat things as a business corporation — whatever happens, he has several key positions that nobody can touch, from which his power originates,' explains Nodar Kharshiladze, founder of the Georgian Strategic Analysis Centre. 'One is the prosecutor's office, so he can influence legal decisions. The secret police, they’re always his guys, also the Interior Ministry, and he keeps a close watch on the National Bank — so law enforcement and money.'
• Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, who serves as the organisation's honorary chairman. In reality, he is the unaccountable and unchecked ruler of the country.

If there are any sources contradicting Ivanishvili as the de facto leader, please provide them. Boud (talk) 22:46, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I added this to a background section to make this a bit clearer in the article. Boud (talk) 22:59, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

References

WERE THE ELECTIONS RIGGED OR NOT?!

This needs to be discussed in every article on the topic (even if it's inconclusive). I am so sick and tired of these articles saying "X alleged", "Y alleged"—did Georgian Dream rig the elections or not? (And if it's genuinely unclear, then please for the love of God say so and explain why—were observers not allowed in? Does Georgia not release enough detailed precinct data for statistical analysis? Something else?) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:47, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

This is what International Republican Institute which observed elections said:

• "The IRI mission concludes that Georgia’s parliamentary elections were fundamentally flawed due to a legal framework and regulatory practices that hindered genuine electoral competition, misuse of public resources by the ruling government, the targeting of civil society, obstruction of opposition parties, systematic voter intimidation, and lack of public confidence and trust in institutions."
• "Georgia’s institutions, including the Central Election Commission, the judiciary, and the government bureaucracy, functioned as arms of the ruling party rather than being independent and impartial. Reflecting on what IRI’s mission observed and on what has transpired since the election, only new elections can restore the Georgian people’s confidence in their government’s legitimacy"

--LeontinaVarlamonva (talk) 09:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves: I allegedly ;) empathise with your frustration at "alleged", "alleged", "alleged". However, we're always going to get a mix of editors with different amounts of time they're willing to spend on searching for good sources and integrating all the info from the sources, and especially when it gets to an issue of numerical data, we have the reliability of open government data problem, with no simple solution but some ideas sketched in the WP:ROGD essay.

Anyway, regarding this particular election, consensus in summarising the higher quality sources is probably best first obtained over at Talk:2024 Georgian parliamentary election, where I see there is actually a talk page section open. Boud (talk) 14:18, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Parties

In my view, even if Bidzina is the "de facto ruler," it is still inappropriate to characterize the "parties" as "Opposition" and "Bidzina."

We don't do this in other conflicts. For instance, in 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests the parties are not listed as "protestors" and "Xi" even though Xi is the de facto ruler of Hong Kong, it's "protestors" and "Hong Kong government."

In the same way, the sides here should be "Opposition" and "Kobakhidze government," with Bidzina being listed under "lead figures" not as a side unto himself. Mosi Nuru (talk) 15:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. It looks unprofessional, contrary to Wikipedia standarts. Even if Ivanishvili is a de facto ruler of Georgia (although he is not really a "de facto" ruler because he is officially a honorary chairman of the party and has the power to nominate the Prime Mininister), he is not an institution and should not be mentioned as such. Persons are not written next to institutions in infoboxes. Rutdam (talk) 17:43, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Please check the meanings of wikt:de facto and wikt:de jure. The whole point of the expression de facto is to talk about reality as opposed to official statements about reality. Being de jure the honorary chairman of the party is fully compatible with being the de facto ruler of the country. Boud (talk) 01:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Agree I think the infobox should err on the side of "most straightforward". Makes total sense to include him as a lead figure though Placeholderer (talk) 20:10, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Disagree anyone who knows anything about Georgian politics now knows Ivanishvili is everything for GD, not just some retired "honorary" personage. Deleting him and moving to less noticeable position is not acceptable. Even major institutions like European Parliament explicitly mention Ivanishvili (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20241121IPR25549/parliament-calls-for-new-elections-in-georgia). They openly talking about Georgia needing "deBidzinization" (https://civil.ge/archives/635305). Also, US financial sanctions targeted Ivanishvili directly even when they didn't target Kobakhidze, so there's clearly wide recognition that he is "the" main person.--LeontinaVarlamonva (talk) 21:18, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Could you find an example of a conflict infobox where a person who calls the shots is put above a government? Mosi Nuru has a good counterexample Placeholderer (talk) 21:25, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I can answer that with a question. Could you find an example of a country where de facto ruler does not hold any official position? It's not something that happens everyday, so looking at what is on other articles not very useful. We don't have to do something just because another article is like that.--LeontinaVarlamonva (talk) 09:34, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Even in case of absolute monarchies, I don't see a king being mentioned by his name above the country or government in any revolution or war. Generally, persons are not written in "parties/belligerents" section of the infoboxes. Therefore, agree with mentioning in the "lead figures" option. Nivzaq (talk) 22:50, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Disagree Please see Wikipedia:Avoid other stuff exists. When other articles use infoboxes misleadingly, in violation of WP:VERIFIABILITY, we should not copy their mis-representation of the reliable sources. Please focus on the sources for this particular case. In the above talk page section nobody has given any sources arguing that Kobakhidze or Kavelashvili are the top people in the hierarchy actually getting government ministries and employees (and titushky of unknown status) to carry out their orders. Boud (talk) 01:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

First, if you'll read the policy you cite, you'll note that it says: "When used correctly, these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes." Can you explain why you don't think other articles about political conflicts aren't valuable precedent here?

Second, it doesn't matter which individual is at the top. The other side of this is still the Kobakhidze government. Mosi Nuru (talk) 01:57, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Boud, I see you have made this revision even though the topic was under discussion and the consensus at the time was to keep Kobakhidze government as the side.

I have reverted your edit. Please do not edit war on this further. Wait until a consensus is established in support of your position if you want to change this again. Mosi Nuru (talk) 02:19, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The current consensus, which is the most recent talk page discussion, is that all the sources agree on Ivanishvili as the effective ruler of Georgia. This new section aims for a possible change to that consensus. Your revert is in contradiction to the current consensus. Boud (talk) 02:35, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

With all due respect, the argument I see against having Ivanishvili at the top of the government side isn't based on Ivanishvili "not being in charge" — and with that in mind I think it's not right to refer to a section where you are the only contributor in order to say that this discussion is aiming to change an established consensus. My own stance is that, based on all the precedent I know about, it's more appropriate to have Kobakhidze government at the top of the government side even though Ivanishvili is considered the de facto ruler of Georgia Placeholderer (talk) 02:55, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

You are conflating two issues.

Issue 1) Is Bidzina the effective ruler? Current consensus is "yes" (although you are the only editor to have weighed in) This not the issue we are discussing.

Issue 2) Should the infobox list Bidzina as a "Side 2" in the conflict? 5 editors have responded, and the majority say "No, Bidzina is a leading figure, maybe even the leading figure, but he is not 'Side 2.'" Mosi Nuru (talk) 03:18, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The sources don't just say that he's the effective ruler, but that he's an autocrat. The only problem here is the choice of an appropriate term. Strictly speaking, Ivanishvili regime could be used, where wikt:regime is used in the sense of governmental system, but the problem would be the ambiguity with the WP:WEASELly connotation of "government that 'we' don't like". To avoid that, Ivanishvili governmental system is clearly a "Side" per the sources. The Kobakhidze government and GD are sub-parts of the Ivanishvili governmental system, per the sources. Boud (talk) 12:44, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I think if there are RS saying the protests as a whole are against the "Ivanishvili regime", they're outnumbered by RS who don't. I think it might be WP:SYNTH to combine sources that say the protests are anti-government and sources that say Ivanishvili is in charge in order to say that the protests are against an Ivanishvili government.

I still haven't seen any precedent for having Ivanishvili at the top. A nearby counterexample where the government side is just "the government" and not the strongman is 2024 Abkhazian protests, where the side is just "Government" (should probably be Government of Abkhazia; might change that after this) even though the ~country is dominated by Putin's Russia.[1] It would also raise the question of how to handle strongmen in charge of strongmen. 2022 North Caucasian protests has Government of Chechnya as a party. If Kadyrov is the official leader of Chechnya, but Putin is in charge of Kadyrov, what would make sense to do? What if it's ambiguous whether or not someone behind the scenes is calling the shots? Depending who you ask, Nazarbayev was still in charge of Kazakhstan for a while (but for how long?) after stepping down in 2019.[2] 2022 Kazakh unrest, which Carnegie Endowment says was what ended Nazarbayev's control, has Government of Kazakhstan at the top. These are examples where people other than the official leader are "in charge", but I'm not sure I fully understand the reasoning for only having individuals at the top in those cases.

To me, what makes the most sense for an infobox and what looks to fit precedent is to have "Kobakhidze government" at the top of the side. To more closely follow precedent would be to say "Government of Georgia" but since the article is about a legitimacy dispute that might not be seen as neutral.

My opinion is the same for 2024–2025 Georgian protests but might as well discuss both here Placeholderer (talk) 19:58, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Each country and situation is different: the number of cases where the de facto leader is not the official leader is low.

When an institution's real leader is not its de jure leader, the individual who is the de facto leader does matter. Boud (talk) 02:35, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Torture in the lead

@LeontinaVarlamonva, you have re-added text to the lead that says hundreds of people were tortured during the protests. [3] Although there are more sources now, I still don't see a single one giving a number of people tortured, especially not a number in the hundreds. The specific wording from Amnesty is Hundreds of protesters, dispersed and arrested by police, have faced violence that, in some cases, amounts to torture and other ill-treatment. (emphasis mine)

I will remove this wording from the lead again for now – if you wish to add it again, the BURDEN is on you to prove all of it. Toadspike [Talk] 21:23, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I added another source for torture and clarified that hundreds were arrested, beaten or tortured, meaning this was not necessarily every case. Nobody can give exact numbers right now for how chaotic these events were but torture has clear evidence.--LeontinaVarlamonva (talk) 09:10, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, using "or" has addressed my concerns here. Toadspike [Talk] 09:10, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Merge and move request

A request to merge 2024–2025 Georgian constitutional crisis and 2024–2025 Georgian protests pages into the 2024–2025 Georgian political crisis page.

Reasons:

The both articles essentially describe same events and most of the content in this article is same or copied from the 2024–2025 Georgian protests page. Having two articles seems redundant and both would fit together better in one page. The constitutional crisis and protests are essentially interlinked and can not be separated, so no need to have two articles for similar events.

Requested move 5 January 2025

2024–2025 Georgian constitutional crisis → 2024–2025 Georgian political crisis – Reasons provided above. Nivzaq (talk) 23:01, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose the merge This article aims at an overview from the constitutional/legal point of view, for which the protests don't have much relevance unless Article 3.2 of the Constitution (v2018) Power is exercised by the people through ... and other forms of direct democracy, and I haven't seen any sources stating that that article of the Constitution is being invoked by the opposition or Zourabichvili to say that the protests are an example of direct democracy. Apart from Article 3.2, protests do not directly affect the legal structure of Georgia as a state. Overall, I see very little overlap of current content between the two articles, even though obviously, there is a relation between them.

The broader political crisis started in 2023 with the first Foreign agent bill proposed to Parliament, which is clear in 2023–2024 Georgian protests, or possibly with the 2020–2021 Georgian political crisis. However, I don't see any sources interpreting the Foreign agents bill as being contrary to the Constitution - it's just repressive, not directly opposed to the EU integration. So those protests are not really justified in the constitutional crisis article.

I see no point in merging two complementary aspects of the crisis into a single article.

On the contrary, in principle a side article missing from 2023–2024 Georgian protests is one about the various versions of the bill itself, including the final version, and any actions taken to implement it, similar to the article Russian foreign agent law. If I understand correctly, NGOs had a deadline of 31 Dec 2024 to report their foreign funding status, and the most obvious place to find info on that would be something like Georgian foreign agent law. Currently, readers have difficulty finding much about that (whether or not the current government is considered valid, it does appear to be still running ministries and carrying out the usual bureaucratic machinery of a government). Boud (talk) 02:05, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

This article and the protests article are closely interlinked because they are stemming from same causes - 2024 parliamentary election and temporary suspension of EU negotiations. Fundamentally, this article covers the legal aspect, while the protests article covers the political aspect of the same event. Also, the Foreign Influence (Foreign Agent) Bill was a different thing and is not related to this protest and there is no continuity, these protests started after 2024 election and are against the government, while the 2023-2024 protests were against specific law. Therefore, the discussion does not concerns the Foreign Influence Bill protests. Nivzaq (talk) 12:07, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Support the merge. Articles cover the same basic subject matter, to the extent they cover different subject matter the best approach is to have a section for the protests and a section for the parliamentary/legal battle each with a section in the broader "political crisis" article.. Mosi Nuru (talk) 02:17, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Strong oppose for reasons explained by Boud. I also think "political crisis" is very common thing in Georgia and its not same as constitutional crisis. This article is focused about complete breakdown of constitutional order in Georgia. I think calling it "political crisis" trivializes what is happening.--LeontinaVarlamonva (talk) 09:16, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

There is only one article named "Georgian political crisis" (despite there being many articles about Georgian protests in various years) and it concerns 2020-2021 political crisis. Actually, the situation is very similar - the opposition refusing to recognize the election results as legitimate and entering the parliament, demanding new elections. Constitutional crisis denotes to the legal aspect of the event, while the protests denotes to political aspect. Constitutional crisis is part of the broader crisis which also encompasses the protests. The alternative term to name the article can also be 2024–2025 Georgian post-election crisis. Nivzaq (talk) 12:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Current situation not similar to 2020-2021, where government and opposition were facing each other and president helping them negotiate. Now there's two claimed presidents, parliament self-convening declared unconstitutional including by people who wrote the constitution, all opposition parties and both living former presidents from different parties. Its total constitutional collapse and calling it "political crisis" is trivializing it.--LeontinaVarlamonva (talk) 14:17, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The situation is largely similar in essence imho. Zurabishvili changing side does not really makes situation different. Moreover, allegations of the Parliament unconstitutionally "self-convening", the opposition not being present, claims of elections being rigged, "former living presidents" opposing the government (Saakashvili and Margvelashvili? I am sure both were on side of the opposition back then too) - all of this was present in 2020-2021 and now too. The only new thing is temporary shelving of EU negotiations but that does not changes the essence of situation imho. It is still same post-election crisis. Nivzaq (talk) 23:15, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Stephen F. Jones, a political scientist specialising in the South Caucasus, sees the Ivanishvili governmental system as having done three mistakes in a row, that successively got the Georgian population more and more angry: the Foreign agent law, falsifying the parliamentary election, and suspending EU accession. His analysis is not peer-reviewed, but we don't have any peer-reviewed sources so far; the opinion of an academic expert is generally more reliable than that of the media. Boud (talk) 12:45, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

References