Party Analysis: Evropuli Sakartvelo (Georgia)
European Georgia and the Curious Case of Opposition Fragmentation
Evropuli Sakartvelo (European Georgia) has long presented itself as the reasonable, pro-Western centre-right alternative in Georgia’s deeply polarised opposition landscape. Formed in 2017 after a split from the once-dominant United National Movement (UNM), the party sought to combine Euro-Atlantic alignment, economic liberalism, and social moderation without the polarising legacy of Mikheil Saakashvili. And yet, despite moments of visibility and influence, Evropuli Sakartvelo has struggled to convert clarity of purpose into durable electoral power.
By the time of Georgia’s disputed October 2024 parliamentary elections, the party had been reduced to a junior partner within the Unity-National Movement coalition. That bloc secured just over 10 per cent of the vote and 16 parliamentary seats in total, against Georgian Dream’s commanding majority. Evropuli Sakartvelo itself claimed only one directly attributable mandate, and, like most opposition forces, boycotted the new parliament altogether. As protests, international mediation efforts, and calls for re-runs continued into late 2025, Evropuli Sakartvelo remained vocal but institutionally marginal: present on the streets and in international briefings, but absent from effective legislative power.
Why Evropuli Sakartvelo Exists
Evropuli Sakartvelo was born of frustration rather than ideology. Following the UNM’s defeat in the 2016 parliamentary elections, a substantial group of senior figures concluded that continued loyalty to Saakashvili - then exiled and increasingly polarising - was electorally fatal. In January 2017, twenty-one MPs broke away, led by figures such as Giga Bokeria, Davit Bakradze, and former Tbilisi mayor Gigi Ugulava. Their aim was not to abandon the UNM’s pro-Western orientation, but to detoxify it.
The new party positioned itself as a corrective to two perceived failures. The first was the UNM’s inability to escape the shadow of Saakashvili’s governing style, which critics - both domestic and international - associated with institutional overreach and democratic backsliding. The second was Georgian Dream’s gradual consolidation of power under Bidzina Ivanishvili, marked by growing influence over the judiciary, media pressure, and an ambiguous relationship with Moscow. Evropuli Sakartvelo sought to occupy the narrowing space between these poles: pro-European without revolutionary rhetoric, reformist without permanent mobilisation.
This positioning resonated most strongly in urban, educated constituencies - particularly in Tbilisi - where fatigue with binary politics was most pronounced. Yet the party’s founding logic also contained a structural weakness: by splitting the opposition vote in an already fragmented system, Evropuli Sakartvelo risked weakening precisely the camp it hoped to rehabilitate.
What the Party Has Achieved
In its early years, Evropuli Sakartvelo demonstrated that there was demand for an alternative opposition voice. The 2017 local elections brought over 10 per cent of the vote and more than one hundred municipal council seats, establishing the party as a serious national actor. Davit Bakradze’s respectable performance in the 2018 presidential election reinforced this impression, even as the party ultimately backed the UNM candidate in the runoff.
At the parliamentary level, results were more modest. In 2020, Evropuli Sakartvelo crossed the threshold with just under 4 per cent, securing five seats - but immediately joined a broader opposition boycott over alleged electoral fraud. This strategy amplified international attention but further weakened institutional leverage. Subsequent local elections in 2021 saw a sharp erosion of the party’s territorial base, confirming its vulnerability outside major cities.
Where Evropuli Sakartvelo arguably punched above its electoral weight was in agenda-setting. The party played a prominent role in protests against the 2023 “foreign agents” law, co-authored President Zourabichvili’s pro-EU Georgian Charter, and participated in EU-brokered negotiations aimed at easing Georgia’s political deadlock. Even so, repeated internal splits - including Bokeria’s departure to form the Federalists in 2024 - blunted momentum. By the time of the Unity coalition in 2024, Evropuli Sakartvelo’s survival depended less on growth than on absorption.
What Success Would Look Like
For Evropuli Sakartvelo, success has always been defined less by office than by direction of travel. The party’s strategic horizon is a pro-Western realignment of Georgian politics that breaks Georgian Dream’s dominance and restores credibility to democratic institutions. In practical terms, this means helping to engineer an opposition victory - most plausibly via coalition - by the late 2020s.
Short-term success would involve overcoming the collective action problem that has repeatedly undermined the opposition: fragmented lists, personal rivalries, and wasted votes below the electoral threshold. Securing a stable role within a governing coalition would allow Evropuli Sakartvelo to advance its core priorities - judicial independence, regulatory liberalisation, and irreversible integration with EU and NATO structures - without carrying the historical baggage of the UNM brand.
Longer-term ambitions are more structural. Party leaders envision Georgia entering substantive EU accession talks, reducing Russian leverage over energy and trade, and normalising socially liberal policies on media freedom and minority rights. Whether Evropuli Sakartvelo itself would be the vehicle for this transformation - or merely one of its architects - remains an open question.
Electoral Rules and Strategic Constraints
Georgia’s electoral system has consistently magnified Evropuli Sakartvelo’s dilemmas. The mixed system - combining proportional representation with majoritarian districts - rewards large, unified blocs and entrenched rural machines. Georgian Dream has exploited this architecture effectively, translating pluralities into durable parliamentary dominance.
For smaller parties, the 5 per cent threshold creates constant incentives to merge or coordinate. Evropuli Sakartvelo’s independent runs have yielded visibility but limited seats; coalition participation has increased vote share but diluted identity. The d’Hondt formula further advantages larger lists, while majoritarian districts - often skewed toward conservative regions - remain effectively closed to urban-centred opposition parties.
The contested rollout of electronic voting in 2024, alongside allegations of manipulation, has deepened mistrust in the process. Yet even under ideal conditions, the system imposes a harsh arithmetic: without disciplined coordination, opposition votes fragment and ruling-party advantages compound. For Evropuli Sakartvelo, structural reform of the opposition may matter more than any individual platform.
How Critics See It
From the perspective of Georgian Dream, Evropuli Sakartvelo is less an alternative than an irritant: a rebranded offshoot of the old UNM elite, dressed in technocratic language but implicated - by association - in past abuses. State-aligned media routinely frame its leaders as Western proxies, disconnected from provincial Georgia and contemptuous of traditional values.
More conservative actors, including segments of the Orthodox Church, portray the party’s social liberalism as cultural erosion. Meanwhile, UNM loyalists have never fully forgiven the 2017 split, viewing Evropuli Sakartvelo as responsible for diluting opposition strength at critical moments. To its critics, the party embodies elite fragmentation: articulate, principled, and politically ineffective.
How It May Be Remembered
Evropuli Sakartvelo’s historical verdict will hinge on outcomes beyond its control. If Georgia ultimately re-anchors itself firmly in the Euro-Atlantic sphere, historians may view the party as a necessary - if flawed - transitional actor: one that helped keep European integration alive during a period of democratic drift. Its internal splits could be recast as painful but necessary attempts at renewal.
If, however, authoritarian consolidation deepens and opposition disunity persists, Evropuli Sakartvelo may be remembered less charitably - as a symbol of how elite rivalry and strategic miscalculation squandered a generational pro-European consensus. In that telling, the party would stand not as a catalyst of change, but as evidence that being right is not the same as being effective.
Either way, Evropuli Sakartvelo captures a central paradox of Georgian politics: a society broadly supportive of Europe, yet repeatedly undermined by the mechanics of opposition politics. Whether that paradox is resolved - or entrenched - will define not just the party’s fate, but the country’s trajectory.