The Namakhvani protests have turned out to be a major and arguably the most difficult-to-handle outburst of public discontent the Georgian Dream government has recently faced. The movement has the potential to upend the entire political class, which means the government must pursue a nuanced political game so as not to inflame the protest.

The protests against the construction of the Namakhvani Hydroelectric Power Plant (NHPP), one of the largest projects with direct foreign investment in Georgia, is now increasingly associated with the shady way politics are made in Georgia. The protests also unify those who tend to view the bankruptcy of Georgian political parties, which though different in a number of ways, still represent an indivisible political class bent on the pursuit of financial gains and lesser interest in the real development of the economy.

The NHPP, planned to be constructed in the municipalities of Tskhaltubo and Tsageri (west Georgia), in the gorge of the Rioni River, consists of two proposed plants – 60-meter-tall Tvishi with a capacity of 100 MW, and 111-meter-tall Namakhvani-Joneti with a capacity of 333 MW. The total capacity of the NHPP is expected to reach 433 MW with an annual generation of 1,500 GWh. These numbers should cover around 12% of Georgia’s annual energy consumption.

The project is a source of foreign direct investment (FDI) of some $800 million. Indeed, FDI has been in decline, and it was a major reason behind Georgia’s poor economic performance (high-rate inflation, stagnating salaries, and high levels of unemployment). No wonder the government hailed the NHPP as a “historic project” as it would create up to 2,000 new jobs and solve one of Georgia’s most pressing energy troubles. Since more than 35% of the energy consumed in Georgia is imported, in the next decade or so Georgia will have to import half of consumed energy. It has been suggested that by 2030, energy consumption in the country is likely to reach 24 million kWh or double the numbers consumed presently – 12,157 million kWh last year.

The project’s proponents also argue that unless a project of this magnitude is implemented, the country’s energy security will be undermined. It relates to regional geopolitics. Georgia’s difficult relations with Russia and instability regarding connectivity and energy transit following the Second Karabakh War in 2020 pushes Tbilisi to find ways to mitigate potentially dangerous dependence on the neighbouring states. Indeed, of the presently consumed energy – 12,157 million kWh, 11,159.8 million kWh of electricity was produced by the country itself and 1,610.1 million KWh was imported. This margin between the local production and the level of import will increase over the next few years. The need to forestall this trend is thus an important task for the government. The latter argues that without the HNPP project, the energy security of Georgia will be undermined within the next few years.

The NHPP is constructed and managed by the ENKA Renewables, which owns 90% of the project. The remaining 10% percent is owned by the Clean Energy Group company.

And here the positive discourse ends as several controversial issues arose which enflamed the population. These problems helped evolve the protests into a well-organised movement by the local population of the Rioni Gorge against the implementation of the project. To be sure, there are those (nearly 300 families) who willingly agreed to leave their land behind in exchange for payment. However, other residents of the gorge refuse to leave their homes.

Ecological reasons fuel the protest as it is feared the construction would increase the seismic activity and impact the unique microclimate in the Rioni Gorge. The local wine industry is also allegedly in danger. Furthermore, residents are worried about the allegedly incongruous terms in the contract concerning the price of the produced energy and the potential transfer of the additional lands around the project area. Overall, the protesters argue that the terms of the agreement are too burdensome for Georgia. Indeed, these allegations were confirmed in the report published by the Georgian online media outlet Mtis Ambebi. In a “classified” letter composed by the Justice Ministry, numerus negative remarks were made regarding the terms in the NHPP agreement.

Georgia has been notorious for anti-hydroelectric-power-plant sentiments. Though the first of the kind was built in Borjomi, Georgia in the late 19th century, a number of projects were advanced in the communist era. In 1978, the largest hydroelectric power plant in Georgia, a 251-meter-tall dam on the Inguri River was constructed.

In the mid-1980s the Khudoni hydroelectric power plant was planned on the Inguri River. Similar to the developments around the NHPP the Khudoni project was halted in late 1980s due to the public demonstrations. Some efforts were made in the 2000s to resuscitate the project, but with little success.

Thus, there is a significant background to the anti-NHPP protests, which gradually became an all-Georgia development. In the end of February, a large-scale rally against the Namakhvani HPP was organized in Kutaisi. On May 23, a several-day-long protest was announced in in Tbilisi against the NHPP. This helped the protest evolve into a movement against the country’s entire political class. One example the protesters would use was that in 2012 the Georgian Dream party, which at the time was a part of the country’s opposition bloc, promised local residents to stop the construction of the NHPP. This means that the protest movement covers the entire political class on both sides of the aisle – whether it is the United National Movement or Georgian Dream.

The anti-NHPP movement also coincided with the country’s deep political crisis over the past year when as a result of the parliamentary elections in October 2020, the population grew increasingly tired of the political games between the parties. The drop in support among the population was significant. Furthermore, pandemic-related economic problems aided the trend, which meant that at a certain point major Georgian political parties could have been engulfed in an existential crisis against a people’s movement angered by shady politics within the government regardless of which party was in charge.

However, the Tbilisi’s protest, supposed to be a turning point, failed to achieve its country-wide dimension. No serious concessions were made by the authorities. It is now also unlikely that the protests will lead to a change of power. Such rallies may become more frequent, but the government managed to take an initiative. Propaganda-wise, on government-associated TV channels as well as through social media, a pro-NHPP agenda quickly managed to gain momentum. More and more people begin to think of the NHPP as a necessary project. This twist also coincides with a relative stabilisation of the political life in the country – opposition parties entered the legislature after months of boycotting. Another strand of propaganda has been aimed the leaders of the Namakhvani protest, criticizing their allegedly anti-Turkish stance (since the ENKA is a Turkish company), thence xenophobic attitude. Some attempts to link the protests to Russia were also made. Furthermore, political parties also distanced themselves from the discussions on the project.

Thus, the momentum behind the anti-NHPP protest has subsided significantly. The construction of the project is likely to continue. So will the protest. An anti-political class movement has still to find necessary tools for a mass appeal. The government which now feels increasingly emboldened following the successful dealing with the internal political crisis, is now more confident in squashing the Namakhvani protest. Perhaps, the best political game for the government to play is to sit and wait when the movement dies out itself without any outside pressure.