By Max Fras

Local mayoral by-elections and parliamentary by-elections in May and June 2019, Georgia’s last electoral test before the 2020 parliamentary elections, signal a turbulent year ahead for Georgian politics and society. Although the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party won throughout, the elections revealed that both GD and opposition parties are struggling to present a meaningful offering to the electorate, whilst stuck in a pattern of path dependency, relying on the same style of political competition since United National Movement’s departure from power in 2012-2013.

By Lincoln Mitchell

The protests and political drama that have engulfed Tbilisi over last week or so has highlighted all of the flaws of Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party (GD). While the image of a pro-Kremlin Russian parliamentarian holding court in Georgia’s legislature was to many Georgians a troubling symbol, that event, and the political outrage it evoked, is less emblematic of Russian sway as much as a reminder of Georgia’s fraught and paradoxical political balancing act.

By Mihai Popsoi

In international circles, Moldova is frequently described as a country torn between Russia and the Euro-Atlantic West, where the push-pull of geopolitical competition is the defining feature of national policy and politics. Yet, while geopolitics may fill the headlines and fuel sombre discussions in Western capitals, the flawed recent elections in Moldova reveal a simpler truth: that political expediency and corruption often wins over strategic and geopolitical orientation.

By Dr. Karena Avedissian

For Armenia, a Russian ally, a member of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and once regarded as increasingly autocratic, the 2018 Velvet Revolution was a remarkable achievement.