my estimation is that Georgian Dream (the incumbent party) will remain the largest party but all the opposition parties they fucked over in the past decade will gang up on them in a coalition

Bosnia without the ethnic conflict I guess

more like Serbia

a vacant parking lot used by all the derelicts in the neighborhood

honestly they've done a good job as far as governance

they didn't fuck with Saakashvili's good reforms, aside from overhauling the healthcare system

their main problem is the flight ban

Why did it happen?

the anti-government riots over the summer led Putin to ban flights as a security measure

it's a way of forcing the Georgians to shit or get off the pot

clearly declare their allegiance to Russia or the U.S.

the government dithered as long as they could and then picked the U.S. in the most weaselly, noncommittal way possible

pleasing no one

Oh, so they half-assed the entire thing and lost on both sides

exactly

and despite being an "illiberal," "authoritarian" government in the mold of Fidesz, every time the opposition sneezes they run to offer them a Kleenex and some cough drops

a big part of the problem is that Georgian Dream aren't really ideological and are just a bunch of cowardly civil servants and oligarchs

they want to keep skimming off the top and avoid serious issues

during the presidential election last year, Bidzina Ivanishvili (the capo of Georgian Dream), used one of his charitable foundations to buy up the debts of 400,000 people

which is a big number (the pop is only about 3 million)

Doesn't that raise questions?

it was a last ditch effort to win the election since the government candidate and UNM's candidate were tied

it raised questions but not enough for people to care because Salome Zurabishvili (the Georgian Dream candidate) ended up winning

she's a doofus

an expatriate who speaks Georgian in a French accent

you see the different mentality compared to Fidesz: they pulled out all the stops to get a clearly mediocre person into power

Are they trying to be self-defeating or to keep nice with the opposition?

To be honest, fidesz also have huge blind spors, but they are ruthless vs the opposition when they act

like I said, they have no real ideology and just want to make money, so they overreact any time there's a threat to their income streams

they think throwing concessions at people will get them to go away

they're all carrot, no stick

Then there is no future there, although I think no european country has any future

For different reasons they are all doomed

a good comparison would be to Viktor Yanukovych, who basically tried to be everyone's friend

and got run out of power by ideological fanatics

I'd say Georgia has a bit further to fall at least re: poz

one of the few major things Georgian Dream did was rewrite the constitution like Fidesz did

they inserted a clause banning gay marriage

of course, this is the FSU, and that kind of thing can be overturned with a "plebiscite" where a bunch of votes just materialize out of thin air

Yeah, it is nice that it is there but that can change anytime

pretty sure Ukrainians didn't expect that Euromaidan would end with Azov Battalion veterans marching in pride parades, and yet it happened