Georgia to have a 'dreamy' future after all?

It's been less than a week since Georgia's legislative elections, but the repercussions are already being felt worldwide. From the halls of Capitol Hill to the offices in Brussels, global actors everywhere have descended into a state of hysteria. What exactly is everyone in the West so worried about? After all, the UN declared the elections to be free and fair and saw virtually no fraud of any kind. Is that not a good sign? Has the will of the people not been heard?

Incoming PM Bidzina Ivanishvili of the Georgian Dream

Maybe so, but at what cost? Even if President Mikheil Saakshvili's pro-western government has fallen by fair means, has democracy brought a more promising coalition to power? Will this new government truly bring an end to authoritarianism and high-level corruption? Will stability and economic growth on a mass-scale be restored? Better yet, will this new government establish itself as a beacon of western liberty or will it instead ally with its illiberal, Russian neighbor to the north?

While anyone would want to believe in the promise of incoming Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party, the prospects of a 'dreamy' future are indeed dim. For one thing, Mr. Ivanishvili has called for closer ties with the Kremlin, which troubles the West and suggests that he holds favorable views towards Russia. This favoritism most likely came about as a result of spending a decade in the motherland where he amassed a $6 billion fortune. Doing business in post-Soviet Russia was a slippery game that required close ties to state officials and oil oligarchs, and Mr. Ivanishvili was no different than anyone else in his approach to economic life. He knew very well that close ties to political leaders in charge of privatization was paramount to any economic success, and he made sure to keep himself well connected during his working years.

This approach ultimately paid off, and Mr. Ivanishivili left Russia with a fortune larger than life. Political power and deference to the Russian state had made him wealthy beyond imagination, but had also cemented in him an ideology that would forever shape his approach to public life. In his eyes, all prosperity is the product of close ties with the state and never involves independent entrepreneurship  If close ties bring individual financial succes, then public-private collaboration does the same for an entire country. Thus, the only path to success for Georgia is one where the state leads the way while business follows from behind. But beyond just providing growth, this approach also leaves a regime highly prone to corruption. Suffice to say, no matter what campaign promises Mr. Ivanishivili has made, his own belief in public-private collusion will only make his country riper for corruption.

This spells trouble to a decade of progress made on President Saakshvili's watch when an anti-democratic government was toppled and bribery and kickbacks became a thing of the past. But even with all that progress. Georgia still paled in comparison to its competitors on all measures, sporting a lackluster Corruption Perceptions Index of 4.1 out of 10.

So if both leaders are equally prone to corruption, what new charges can we bring against Mr. Ivanishvili? Shall we question his party and how cohesive it is? Better yet, is his party even unified at all?

Far from being a tight-knit group of legislators with similar goals and beliefs, Mr. Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream is much more a broad coalition of former opposition outliers vying for power through whatever means necessary.Without any common ideological cause, it's only a matter of time until infighting supplants feigned cooperation and makes governance of any kind virtually impossible. Thus, rather than bringing much needed stability to Georgia, Mr. Ivanishvilli and the Georgian Dream, through its own disunity, will fragment the political system and bring instability and ultimately political stagnation. Stagnation within the parliament will only be compounded by the presence of President Saakshvili, who will almost certainly do everything in his power to foil Mr. Ivanishvili's efforts at effective governance. This will destabilize the government even further and lead to its fall from public grace.

But the real losers in this story will be the Georgian people who will be powerless against the recklessness of a volatile government. No matter his motives, Mr. Ivanishvili's calls for closer ties with the Kremlin will almost certainly damage his credibility with the West. Furthermore his very outlook on public life will ensure that corruption doesn’t go away any time soon. Finally, the divided nature of his party and presence of President Saakshivili will make policymaking of any kind next to impossible. All the while, the Georgian people will suffer and find themselves stuck in an endless bad dream of despair.