Elections

Donald Trump aged 78 was sworn in as the 47th president of the US and pledged in his inauguration address to rescue America from what he described as years of betrayal and decline, prioritizing a crackdown on illegal immigration. Trump declared his intention to sign a number of executive actions in his first hours as president, including a number focused on border security and immigration, his top priority. Trump announced a "national emergency" at the US-Mexico border, declared drug cartels as terrorists, and will scrap government diversity programmes. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.

Donald Trump aged 78 was sworn in as the 47th president of the US and pledged in his inauguration address to rescue America from what he described as years of betrayal and decline, prioritizing a crackdown on illegal immigration. Trump declared his intention to sign a number of executive actions in his first hours as president, including a number focused on border security and immigration, his top priority. Trump announced a "national emergency" at the US-Mexico border, declared drug cartels as terrorists, and will scrap government diversity programmes. His vice president, JD Vance, was sworn in just before him.

Giorgi Gakharia, a former prime minister of Georgia who now leads one of the country's main opposition groups, was hospitalised after being severely beaten. Acording to media reports he sustained injuries on his face and head during an assault by several men at a hotel lobby in Batumi. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Gakharia said his health was stable. His party, For Georgia, called the assault a "brutal, coordinated group attack" and said the government was to blame. Party in government has denied any wrongdoing.

The situation in Georgia is currently very critical. As commonspace.eu pointed out in its editorial published on 2nd December time has run out for Bizhina Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party. What remains for Ivanishvili and his associates is to agree an honourable exit after agreeing to new elections, which must be administered by a credible body. However, every day that Georgian Dream procrastinates, its position weakens. And every statement of its leaders makes things worse. The Georgian Dream had everything going for it but it squandered its political capital and its legacy. Ivanishvili tried to manage Georgian politics like a business. He failed to build bridges with opponents and relied on inexperienced people who failed to understand how Georgian politics worked. Georgia needs to come out of this experience stronger than before.

Georgia is once again embroiled in turmoil, its central Rustaveli Avenue literally alight with protests sparked by a wave of political and geopolitical tensions. Following controversial parliamentary elections held 26 October, tensions have escalated, with many citizens accusing the government of pivoting away from the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia. They demand a new vote.

The first round of presidential elections in Romania that took place on the 24th of November had a shocking result: an independent ultranationalist candidate – Calin Georgescu – with a campaign solely on TikTok and YouTube won the majority of votes. The independent candidate had no party backing him and none of the pre-election polls picked up on his popularity, raising questions of potential electoral manipulation via social media.

Time is up for the Georgian Dream and its leader Bidzina Ivanishvili. Many in Georgia accused the Georgian Dream of rigging the elections of 28 October, and in recent weeks there have been protests in Georgia calling for new fair elections and an investigation into what actually happened around the election period and the election process. The beating up of peaceful demonstrators in the streets of Tbilisi in recent days is an embarrassment to every decent Georgian Dream supporter. That was bad enough, but what finally broke the government's support was the decision by the Georgian Dream two days ago to end its negotiations with the European Union with a view to Georgia's joining the EU or rather postpone the negotiations with four years. This created a completely different situation. Because, first of all, EU membership and EU perspective is embedded in the Georgian constitution, so Georgian Dream has no power to actually renounce or delay this mandate. Secondly, for many people it brought up the whole question of future relations with the EU and the West, and in truth no one in Georgia wants to break relations and the decision of the Georgian Dream leaves it isolated and unable to claim the support of the whole society.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met in Berlin today to discuss their vision for the future of Europe in light of the recent US presidential election, which Donald Trump claimed victory in. The meeting underlined their commitment to steer Europe towards greater unity, resilience and sovereignty amid evolving global dynamics.

Georgia is one of the former Soviet republics that, in theory, could have made a smooth transition to a European-style democratic model. Instead, it plunged into civil war in the early 1990s and enduring political divisions that persist to this day.