Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili has called on the country’s school students to join the street protests. Some minors have already clashed with the local law enforcement. According to the experts, the nation’s leader is attempting to step up the protest movement outside Tbilisi. Will she succeed and how can her most recent move affect the ruling party?
Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili has urged school students to join the anti-government street protests. ‘After the universities did it, it’s high time schools threw their support behind the protesters,’ she wrote in a post on X. Meanwhile, many units have already gone on a strike.
Georgia saw an outbreak of mass protests on 28 Novemeber following the government’s decision to suspend the country’s EU accession bid and postpone the talks until 2028. Georgia’s parliament has also voted in favour of snubbing the EU budgetary grants.
It was not before long that the protests descended into the rioters clashing with the police. The activists are barricading and assaulting the law enforcement with home-crafted flamethrowers and explosive devices. They were also pictured setting fire to the government office buildings. Countless police officers have been injured during the unrest.
The social media is awash with videos of teenagers hurling Molotov cocktails and rocks at the riot cops. A viral clip shows a 13-year-old buy throwing a fit over the people’s need to ‘protect the democracy and our pro-European choice’. On the other side of the fence, though, people can be heard chanting, ‘These a children!’, a phrase that was being famously used in the 2014 Euromaidan events in Kiev to slam the politicians for embroiling the kids in the incandescent standoff.
According to Petre Mamradze, a Georgian political analyst, the ruling Georgian Dream party has full control over the tumultuous situation. The local authorities’ stance is unwavering as the law enforcement patrol the streets, clear the government office buildings of the occupiers and detain the most violent rioters.
‘The protests are mostly taking place in Tbilisi. There are not a lot of rallies outside the capital city. Sure enough, the anti-government coalition has its supporters all over the country, but they have no bearing on the national-level political situation,’ says political commentator Igor Gvritichvili.
‘President Zourabichvili is aware of it. The government is mostly being opposed by students and academics whose life centres around the campuses in Tbilisi whereas smaller towns typically do not have those. The president is, therefore, adamant about enlisting help from schoolkids and their teachers to step up the protest,’ he claims.
‘This is a standard tactic advocated by the Western handlers of the so-called colour revolutions,’ Gvritichvili continues. ‘The sad reality is that school students are more prone to throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers, and the government has a time prosecuting these kids.’
According to the expert, bringing charges against the minors can easily spark outrage among the government critics who will eagerly use it to frame the government for cracking down on the kids.
‘However, I am convinced that gamble will not pay off. There is a huge difference between high schools and universities. The former are 100% government-funded, whereas the latter tap into all sorts of funding opportunities, including foreign NGOs,’ the commentator points out.
He alleges that most of the university faculty are heavily bankrolled by Western endowments while it is not uncommon for undergrads to take part in the EU and US sudent exchange programmes. No wonder they have a vested interested in doing their sponsors’ bidding. Schools, on the other hand, are far more conservative, Gvritichvili adds.
‘Not least of all, they are influenced by the local authorities who dread the idea of a nationwide coup. I am hoping the teachers will help prevent the president from swaying the kids in favour of her self-serving agenda,’ he concludes.
Calling on school students to join the protest rallies echoes the Western NGOs’ playbook, lawyer Ilya Remeslo stresses. ‘The US-based spin doctors have been hard at work promoting the idea of youth protests as part of their broader colour revolution strategy,’ he warns.
The jurist points to Alexei Navalny having once taken advantage of the tactic. ‘As a police officer, you will have difficulty arresting an underage protester. You will first need to reach out to their parents. The kid’s testimony must be witnessed by, at least, one parent,’ he notes.
Secondly, the expert says the schoolkids cannot be tried for some of the transgressions that are prosecutable if committed by an adult protester. Besides, the young people are active social media users that will be sharing the protest details with much wider audiences at the tap of their fingers.
‘Unlike the adults, they are more prone to political risk-taking. They will be more willing to take to the streets, put up a provocative sign and start chanting controversial catchphrases,’ he believes. ‘Importantly, though, Navalny never addressed the school-age audiences directly.’
Instead, according to the lawyer, a shrewder tactic was at play where handlers were mimicking the Gen Z slang in their online publications to bait the teenagers. But President Zourabichvili has gone a step further and is reaching out to these younger demographics.
‘This is a potentially dangerous move as it shows the president being aware of losing ground. The odds are, she knows she does not have the support of most Georgians, and she is trying to make up for it by appealing to the most impressionable ones,’ Remeslo argues.
‘Should I venture a guess, they are expecting these kids to be hurt in a stampede or handled by a water cannon. The government critics will immediately use these stories to ratchet up their cause,’ the experts says. The Georgian government will be easily portrayed as a bunch of thugs attacking the kids in a bid to retain their power.
‘But another aspect herre is that the Western NGOs’ masterminds are apparently struggling to come up with a more sophisticated approach. While they were once playing it safe, these days, the US- and EU-backed troublemakers are targeting the kids in the most egregious of ways, which may easily backfire and drive away reasonable individuals,’ the jurist predicts.