The report analyzes the speculation on religious topics by political entities during the pre-election campaign and the participation of clergy in the election campaign.

Accordingly, the purpose of the monitoring was to identify and analyse the facts of the manipulation of religious topics by political parties and the participation of clergy and religious organisations in the pre-election campaign. The report analyses, on the one hand, the manipulation with religious topics in the pre-election campaign by political parties and, on the other hand, the incidents of clergy endorsing a particular political party, participating in the campaign of political parties or becoming otherwise involved, which could have influenced the election processes. The report covers the period from 1 August 2024 to 30 October 2024. The research is not comprehensive in the sense that it does not include the facts that were not published on social media accounts of political parties and/or clergymen and/or were not covered in the media.

Ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections, Georgian Dream began to fight for the votes of conservative voters. Accordingly, the pre-election campaign of the government was saturated with ultra-conservative topics focusing on the protection of pseudo-religious and pseudo-family values. In April 2024, a few months prior to the start of the election campaign, the parliamentary majority of Georgian Dream initiated the Draft Law on the Protection of Family Values and Minors. The parliamentary majority passed the law on 17 September 2024 in the third reading. Despite the strong international backlash, the initiative of the ruling party was positively evaluated by the Patriarchate of Georgia

In the past two years, the pseudo-religious-national sentiments have been entrenched in the rhetoric of Georgian Dream so much that the ruling party has completely occupied the niche previously held by strongly pro-Russian far-right actors. Similar to the far-right groups, in the parliamentary elections of 2024, the government made pseudo-religious values, “the institution of family”, gender identity and sexual orientation as the focal points for its politics, which was likely to divert the society’s attention from important issues.

Considering that the election campaign of Georgian Dream was unprecedentedly saturated with religious topics, which was welcomed and reciprocated in equal measure by the Patriarchate of Georgia, the threat of interference by religious organisations in the election campaign, which is prohibited by the Election Code of Georgia, has increased significantly.

PSEUDO-RELIGIOUS VALUES AT THE CENTRE OF THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN OF POLITICAL PARTIES