Nearly two decades after the Velvet or Rose Revolution of November 2003 in Georgia, the land of the Georgians (Kartuli), the country is once again engaged in increasing political developments that indicate fundamental changes in the political conditions of this South Caucasus country.

The new round of developments in Georgia began when the ruling Georgian Dream party won about 54 percent of the vote (89 out of 150 seats) in the parliamentary elections on October 26, 2024. As a result, given the parliamentary nature of Georgia’s political system, in addition to the post of prime minister held by the ruling Georgian Dream party (led by Irakli Kobakhidze), the post of president also fell into the hands of supporters of the Georgian Dream party and its offshoot and, of course, aligned branch (the People’s Power 2022 party led by Mikhail Kavlashvili) as a result of the parliamentary elections, despite widespread protests by protesters and the support of the then pro-Western President of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili, who had called the developments in Georgia a “Russian special operation.”

Mikheil Kavlashvili was elected as the sixth president on December 14, 2024 by an electoral assembly consisting of members of parliament and local government representatives. Out of the 225 members present at the assembly, 224 voted for Mikheil Kavlashvili, a former member of the Georgian parliament (2016-2024), who was the only candidate nominated by the opposition in the context of sanctions. Despite resisting this election, Salome Zurabishvili was forced to cede power due to the ineffectiveness of street demonstrations by supporters of Europeanism. Thus, after two decades of the Rose Revolution in Georgia, when power was completely or in the majority of important positions in the hands of Westerners, power has now passed to critics of Westernization and Europeanism; an issue that has been welcomed by Russia and met with negative reactions from the United States, NATO, and the European Union.

The peak of these reactions was after October 4, 2025 with the announcement of the results of the local elections and the victory of the ruling party candidates in more than 80 percent of the electoral districts, and with the support of the European Union, including the call by Anita Hipper, spokesperson for the European Commission, for opposition protests in Georgia, a wave of opposition supporters took to the streets and even entered the Georgian presidential palace for a while; however, the scope of the protests was not enough to cause the overthrow of the established government (Prime Minister and President). Considering the importance and regional position of Georgia, seven points can be made about the current developments in this country and their consequences:

First, the Georgian Color Revolution, which took place in 2003 under the leadership of Mikhail Saakashvili, the country’s former Minister of Justice, and in the context of people’s dissatisfaction with widespread financial and political corruption, not only brought about serious changes in the country, but also was effective in creating a domino effect of color revolutions in Kyrgyzstan in February 2005, Ukraine in 2004 and 2014, and Armenia in 2018. Although the Georgian Color Revolution was formed on the basis of people’s dissatisfaction with the two decades of Edward Shevardnadze’s performance, it came to fruition with the direct intervention of the United States and some European countries, and George Soros, head of the American Soros Foundation, openly admitted that he had spent ten million dollars on the Rose Revolution in Georgia, so this Color Revolution was considered part of the West’s projects for the South Caucasus.

Second; The most important achievement of the Color Revolution in Georgia was the effective fight against corruption in Georgia. According to the World Bank, Georgia was ranked 122nd in the fight against corruption in 2003, but after the Color Revolution, this rank increased to 18th; and this achievement was effective in the continuation of the power of the leaders of the Color Revolution in this country despite their unilateral and anti-Russian approaches in the field of foreign policy. At the same time, after the Color Revolution, the Ajaria region centered in Batumi and bordering Turkey returned to Georgia with the deployment of the Georgian army and the departure of “Aslan Abashidze” from this self-proclaimed region. Due to the lack of a common border between this region and Russia, Moscow was unable to take any action to maintain its puppet local government in this region.

Third, despite the positive achievements mentioned above, Georgia’s Color Revolution also brought negative consequences to the country, which is the root of today’s developments in Georgia and the people’s turning away from the slogans and aspirations of the Color Revolution. These negative consequences can be discussed in several areas:

  1. Following the Color Revolution of 2003, Tbilisi, by emphasizing membership in the European Union, establishing a ministry for integration with the European Union, unprecedented expansion of its relations with NATO, and at the same time strengthening Western-oriented treaties such as Guam and withdrawing from pro-Russian institutions in the region, including withdrawing from the Commonwealth of Independent States in August 2009 and not being a member of the Eurasian Customs Union, adopted a one-dimensional policy of Europeanism and NATOism, while, as evidenced by the techniques and theories of politics and international relations, a unilateralist approach and abandoning balancing is considered a problematic approach for small countries. As a result, Tbilisi’s relations with Moscow have cooled, despite the Kremlin’s influence over some of the country’s infrastructure and its energy and transit dependencies on Russia.
  2. Mikhail Saakashvili, who came to power after the 2003 Color Revolution, in 2008, believing that the promises of support from the United States, NATO, and then-US President George Bush, who had visited the country in May 2005, were serious, launched attacks on South Ossetia and Abkhazia on August 8, 2008, coinciding with the Summer Olympics in China. Saakashvili’s goal was to return these regions, which had unilaterally declared independence since the beginning of Georgia’s independence, to the country. However, Russia, using this opportunity and planning to support ethnic Russians in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, severely attacked Georgia’s infrastructure. One of these attacks created a humiliating scene in which Saakashvili was seen fleeing down a street near the presidential palace as Moscow’s fighter jets and helicopters circled the skies over Tbilisi. The West failed to keep its promises to support Georgia, and the Georgian army was forced to retreat. The regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which had only declared independence until then, declared their accession to Russia through local referendums. Moscow also recognized them, making the path for these regions to return to Georgia much more difficult.

Fourth, what disappointed the Georgian people was that Saakashvili, as the most important leader of the Color Revolution – along with Nino Borjanadze and Salome Zurabishvili – after his defeat in the presidential election on October 2, 2012, and his departure from the country, became the governor of Odessa province in Ukraine for a while (2014-2016), where he continued his strongly anti-Russian policies. This action was very intolerable for the Kartuli (Georgians) of Georgia because it showed that the leader of the Color Revolution was acting as a pawn for NATO, the European Union, and the United States, and that land and homeland were an abstract and marginal concept for him; but it seems that the most important reason for the paradigm shift and the turn in the approach of the Georgian people is the war in Ukraine and its consequences, the black results of which are facing Tbilisi – which is considered Ukraine’s maritime neighbor. Ukraine, which emerged from the Color Revolution, like Georgia during the Rose Revolution, began its path of NATO and membership in the European Union in an extreme way, abandoning the balance. This has now come at the cost of losing about thirty percent of Ukraine’s territory, killing and injuring hundreds of thousands of people, destroying vital military, energy and transit infrastructure, and dividing it into zones of influence and favoritism. The US and NATO’s request for Georgia to transfer Javelin missiles and Buk missile systems to Georgia showed that NATO is seeking to bring Tbilisi into the war in Ukraine, an issue that has caused concern among Georgians. Accordingly, Mikhail Kavlashvili, the current president and former professional footballer for Manchester United and a figure close to Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire and former prime minister of Georgia, has emphasized that Western intelligence agencies are trying to drag Georgia into war with Russia. In such an environment, especially after 2023, trust in the leaders of the Color Revolution in Georgia declined sharply. Even Mikheil Saakashvili’s return to Georgia before the October 2024 parliamentary elections not only did not meet with public approval, but his arrest also failed to create a wave of protests.

Fifth; Georgia’s current developments are considered a defeat for the European Union and NATO, and a victory for Russia, which has severed official diplomatic relations with Georgia since 2008. After Kobakhidze’s victory, Tbilisi passed a bill on May 13, 2025 called Foreign Agents (Foreign Influence), which was similar to the Russian law passed in 2012. According to this law, any institution with more than twenty percent of its budget coming from abroad is considered a foreign agent. It seems that the passage of this bill was due to the role of institutions that played a role in the 2003 Color Revolution through financial contributions from the Soros Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States, and other Western institutions. Also, following the negative reactions of the European Union, the Tbilisi government suspended its application for EU membership negotiations until 2028 on November 28, 2024, dealing a second blow to the West. Steps were also taken to resume communications with Russia and establish flights; While the same Georgian Dream party signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with the European Union in 2014. Of course, in the context of the developments in Georgia over the past three decades, the reality is that integration with Europe has been an important part of the dream of Georgians (Kartvelians), and various polls confirm this; although for the reasons mentioned, the intensity of this dream (demand) has decreased, and for this reason, the colorful version of the West, namely coming to power through street protests, has not been effective for the Georgian National Unity Movement so far. Despite these experiences, the Shevardnadze era and its aftermath show that balancing and multilateralism are the best approaches for Georgia’s foreign policy.

Sixth, the developments in Georgia, especially if the victories of the Georgian Dream party are consolidated, will also have regional effects. These developments will increase Russia’s motivation to return to the Caucasus and respond to the anti-Russian actions of Baku and Yerevan, which have intensified especially in recent months; especially since some of the actions of the leaders of these countries, such as accepting the Trump route plan, calling on Ukraine to resist and sending financial aid to it by Baku, were clearly aimed at expelling Russia from the Caucasus and humiliating the Kremlin.

Seventh; Iran’s central interest is in developing relations with Georgia, because Georgia is at the center of the corridor connecting the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea through Iran and Armenia, and at the same time, it is one of the important branches of the North-South corridor. In the past years, ethnic lobbies in Baku and Ankara, in order to convince Tehran to focus solely and without balance on the transit capacities of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the North-South corridor, in addition to raising the difficulty of the Armenian route, suggested the Western approach of the Georgian governments as obstacles to the passage of the Persian Gulf-Black Sea corridor through Armenia and Georgia. Although even during the time of the Western-oriented governments in Georgia, there were capacities for transit cooperation between Iran and Georgia, but now, with the change in Tbilisi’s approach and the progress of the implementation process of the construction and reconstruction of the roads from the south to the north of Armenia, the issue of operationalizing the Persian Gulf-Black Sea corridor has become more and more ready; In particular, the Tbilisi government is well aware that one of the consequences of Baku’s insistence on the fake Zangezur corridor will be the weakening of Georgia’s position on transit and energy routes, and then the exposure of Baku’s ethnocentric and pan-Turkist actions in the Azerbaijani-populated regions of Georgia. Therefore, Tbilisi is more inclined today than ever to transit and energy cooperation with Iran and Armenia.

**Dr. Ahmad Kazemi, Senior Researcher on Eurasian Issues