Strasbourg – A few weeks after the historic vote in Hungary, the repercussions of Viktor Orbán‘s electoral defeat are being felt well beyond the country’s borders and across the European Union. They are resonating particularly in those EU candidates where the influence of the Hungarian Prime Minister had long bolstered governments with distinctly autocratic tendencies. Georgia offers a clear example in this sense.
“It was a message of hope for the people of Georgia that change is possible and autocratisation can be reversed,” confirmed Marika Mikiashvili, a member of the Droa Party, speaking with The New Union Post.
Orbán was the Georgian Dream party’s principal ally within the EU – the only leader to fly to Tbilisi to recognise the 2024 election result, and the one who blocked the restrictive measures against Georgian authorities responsible for democratic backsliding in the candidate country. According to Mikiashvili, a change of government in Budapest represents “a massive blow” to the infrastructure used in Tbilisi to avoid EU sanctions and exploit loopholes via Hungary.
But this is not all. The triumph of opposition leader Péter Magyar – who is now ready to form a new government, with high hopes at stake – has “visibly increased” public pressure on the Georgian opposition to “perform better and engage with the grassroots, especially in the regions,” Mikiashvili warns. While lessons can be learnt, the risks of drawing misleading parallels should not be overlooked.
Orbán or Lukashenko style?
Is the Georgian Dream’s autocratic regime more similar to Orbán’s Hungary or Lukashenko’s Belarus? This is the crucial question when discussing what a unified opposition in Georgia can learn from the Hungarian electoral experience.
Mikiashvili has no doubts. “The Georgian Dream is well past the Orbán model,” she says, adding that the idea it could concede electoral defeat – like the Hungarian prime minister did – “sounds like a fantasy scenario.” While learning from Magyar is “essential,” it is impossible to imagine outperforming “a Lukashenko-aspiring autocrat in unfair elections,” she warns.
On the contrary, embracing a narrative that recognises that it is possible to win unfair elections in any scenario, provided the margin is high enough, would “undermine the boycott strategy” of the majority of opposition parties – which unified under a single front in March 2026 – by implying that they did not perform well enough in the rigged 2024 parliamentary elections. “This would simply put Georgians in a perpetual state of victim-blaming and political defeat,” Mikiashvili points out.
It should also not be forgotten that “Hungary was protected from stolen elections thanks to EU membership and its geographic distance from Russia,” while Georgia can rely on neither of these factors, especially considering that its EU application is frozen.
One major implication concerns the financial sphere. While Orbán’s government benefited from EU funds and outright electoral rigging could have undermined its system, in the Georgian Dream’s case the dynamic is reversed. “It is closer alignment with the EU that would unsettle its business ties and the economic model” built to benefit from sanctions evasion involving Russia.
Moreover, the legislative framework targeting the opposition, as well as the level of physical violence and criminal prosecution, are “incomparable” between the two countries. As Mikiashvili recalls, most Georgian opposition leaders are in jail or under prosecution, and several leading parties are set to be banned constitutionally, with the ruling party publicly stating that “they would ban whoever grows strong enough to pose an electoral threat.”
One final point concerns the electoral law. In Hungary, Orbán tailored a system designed to benefit the largest party, which has been Fidesz for the past 16 years. However, as soon as Magyar’s party gained in popularity, it began to reap the advantages of a highly disproportional electoral system based on single-member constituencies. Under proportional representation alone, Tisza would not have secured a parliamentary supermajority, with a result – 55% of the vote – broadly similar to independent polling figures for Georgia’s rigged 2024 parliamentary elections.
The state of EU–Georgia relations
Just one week after the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, on 3 March 2022, Georgia submitted its application for EU membership, alongside Moldova and Ukraine. On 14 December 2023, the European Council endorsed the European Commission’s recommendation to grant Tbilisi candidate status.
However, as demonstrated by a vast legislative agenda over recent years, Georgia’s slide towards authoritarianism has accelerated, leading to a freeze in its EU accession path. According to Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, Tbilisi’s candidate status “exists only on paper.”
One month after the controversial elections of 26 October 2024, marred by electoral fraud, Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that his government would not put the opening of accession negotiations with the EU on the agenda “before the end of 2028.” During this period, the government also plans to “reject any EU budget support grants”.
The decision sparked a wave of strong protests from citizens, who are overwhelmingly pro-EU and view the departure from the European family as a theft of their future. Since 28 October, mass protests have taken place nightly for months, with peaceful demonstrators increasingly facing violence from special police forces.
Meanwhile, the institutional crisis deepened. Georgian Dream nominated Mikheil Kavelashvili – a former footballer and leader of the far-right party People’s Power – as the new de facto President of the Republic on 14 December 2024. President Salomé Zourabichvili told The New Union Post that she would remain in office until new elections are held and a “legitimate successor” is appointed.
Protests continued across the country well into 2025. Violence and repression resumed, targeting members of opposition parties as well as ordinary citizens. Journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, founder of the independent outlets Batumelebi and Netgazeti, was sentenced to two years in prison following a minor altercation with police.
On the legislative side, among the most alarming measures are amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences, which introduced anti-demonstration laws severely restricting freedom of assembly and expression; the Foreign Agents Law enacted in April 2024; the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) passed in April 2025, targeting individuals deemed “foreign agents”; and legislation from May 2025 that streamlines the banning of political parties.
