Lefteast
Note from LeftEast editors: Between October and November of this year, four countries of the wider Black Sea region—Moldova and Georgia, Bulgaria and Romania—will have held elections with almost no left-wing alternatives on the ballot. With the following article, originally published in Jacobin, we open a series of analyses from the region that challenge the simplified coverage […]
Note from LeftEast Editors: This article was originally published at The Second Cold War Observatory (SCWO) on April 25, 2024. In the wake of the Soviet collapse, investment in mega infrastructure has been pitched as the solution to Georgia’s development. Already in the 1990s, in the face of rapid deindustrialization and armed conflicts in the […]
The recent period in Tbilisi saw the streets being swept up in waves of demonstrations against the law on “transparency of foreign influence”. The oppositional media constantly regurgitates the idea that the youth of Georgia, Gen Z, unequivocally upholds protests. I have seen claims that this is a “Children’s revolution”, and that the demonstrations have […]
On May 28, the Parliament of Georgia has overcome a presidential veto over the controversial “foreign agents law.” Initiated by the ruling party Georgian Dream (GD) in March 2023, the law soon had to be withdrawn because of backlash. This year, however, the GD achieved their goal. The legislation introduces mandatory registration for any “non-entrepreneurial (non-commercial) […]
We co-wrote this article at the beginning of May. On May 28, the Georgian parliament overrode the presidential veto and finally adopted the Law Against Foreign Influence. Although written at an earlier stage of the protests, everything that happened since then has largely confirmed the conclusions we drew back then. Since early April, Tbilisi, the capital […]
The outsized role that foreign-funded NGOs play in Georgia’s politics, policy-making, and public services has led the country into a chronic crisis of its democracy. There is a massive problem at the heart of Georgia’s peculiar political economy. It goes back a quarter of a century, predating the 2003 Rose Revolution. The late president Edvard […]
Interview with Vako Natsvlishvili from the political movement “Khma”. In this insightful interview, Vako, a member of the “Khma” movement, sheds light on the housing crisis in Georgia and the challenges faced by anti-eviction activists in the country. The recent incident involving the eviction of a family has sparked public outrage, leading to the arrest […]
Since 2011 and as part of the organization of LeftEast as a media platform, members of the LeftEast collective have organized summer schools in Budapest, Sofia, Kaunas, Istanbul and Skopje. Their aim has always been always twofold – or as we wrote once, dialectical – working with movements on the ground to connect regionally but […]
I went to Georgia to take part in the annual meeting organized by LeftEast, and this gave me the opportunity to visit the small town of Tskaltubo for a few days with some comrades. Here I share a few thoughts, feelings, impressions and a photo essay of what I observed there. We arrive in front […]
In an effort to regulate foreign influence in Georgia, the Georgian parliament, People’s Power, as it is called, introduced two bills in late February, “On the registration of foreign agents” and “On the transparency of foreign influence.” People’s Power broke away from the ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD) so it could be more open about […]