Tbilisi Residents Divided Over Future As Georgia Votes
Date
10/26/2024 2:33:50 PM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
AFP
Tbilisi: Voters in the Georgian capital Tbilisi expressed diverging views on Saturday on whether their country should move closer to Europe or improve ties with Moscow.
"I want to live in Europe, not in Russia," said 18-year-old voter Alexandre Guldani.
"These elections are very important for me, especially given our country's current state of affairs," he said.
The opposition has cast the ballot as a make-or-break battle between joining the European Union and falling back into Moscow's orbit.
But the ruling party rejects this, accusing the opposition of risking confrontation with a country that waged war against Georgia in 2008 and dominated it for two centuries.
Georgia, a country of around four million people, was part of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union until its independence in 1991.
In 2008, it was invaded by the Russian army, whose forces still occupy a fifth of the country.
Other voters in the capital urged pragmatism in relations with Moscow, currently embroiled in a two-and-a-half year invasion of Ukraine.
"We should be friends with Russia -- and Europe," said Giga Abuladze, who works in a kindergarten run by the Orthodox Patriarchate in Tbilisi.
"There is an opposition and so be it but it mustn't be disruptive. We need to help each other," the 58-year-old said, praising Georgian Dream's billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Musicologist Suzanne Kassian said Georgia needed to find a "harmonious path between traditions and development".
"We can't choose our neighbours, so we have to be clear-headed about our geopolitical position," the 59-year-old said.
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