War or Peace? This question has become the main, and most importantly, cheapest, most speculative and choicest of slogans of the current election campaign.* Yes, the cheapness of pushing the call “War or Peace?” lies precisely in the fact that there is only one correct and indisputable answer to this question: peace, of course.
Such an appeal is naturally speculative, because, against the backdrop of ongoing hostilities in the region, the “electoral bet” is on the voter’s very human, basic sense of fear and instinct to avoid danger. For any normal society and rational voter, the answer in this case is one: Peace!
Indeed, the call to choose between “war and peace” leaves the voter with virtually no real choice. All the more so if the authors of this appeal have nothing to offer society other than that pointless slogan addressed to both themselves and the Georgian electorate. Their move is easy enough to explain: when you cannot formulate the country’s development agenda and you have nothing else to offer Georgian voters, the only effective election message you can come up with will be a cheap and speculative appeal.
They talk about the benefits of peace as a counterweight to war as if they have made a special discovery. Moreover, when talking about the issue (just imagine, mentioning the superiority of peace over war, which is more than obvious!), they suggest one or another person, and their own “party asset,” as the only “guarantee” of peace.
However, in their self-satisfied analysis of this highly artificial equation “War or Peace?,” the second, main question of the same equation remains unanswered: “peace, at what cost?”
At such times, as a rule, we might be faced with an attempt to avoid a meaningful answer. Avoiding an answer, at the very least, indicates non-state political handwriting. And that’s at best. In any other case, when considering the question “peace, at what cost?” you can think the worst, especially when you witness a particular word, action or attitude.
This is a question of principle, which also requires a principled, substantively correct and clearly formulated answer. Of course, there is and will be no alternative to peace! This is the kind of truth the emphasizing of which, or citing as a sort of argument, turns the election campaign of any political force into one that is, again, cheap and speculative.
I think the answer to the question “peace, at what cost?” coming from a responsible political force focused on the development of the country and real peace, should be as follows: “There can be no lasting peace in a country without a functional and civil political and social environment.” I consider the normalization of state and political relations in the country to be the most important condition for this, which, first of all, means a return to the constitutional field and a restructuring to the principles of institutional governance.
It should be emphasized that, along with the resolution of other issues of principle, it is necessary to restore the capacity of state institutions as provided for in the Constitution. It is necessary for every institution – even at the cost of its own mistakes – to participate in the processes of governance within the rights and responsibilities established for it by law. It is necessary that policy development be based on the principles of openness and accountability. Yes, it is with great regret that we have to state that, today, the Georgian state and society are facing priority tasks, such as returning the role of the parliament as a determiner of the country’s domestic and foreign policies, restoration of the executive function of the government as a collegial body accountable to parliament, establishment of justice as the inviolable authority of the “creation of law”, effective concern for the security of the country and citizens by the security system, etc. The list of existing problems is, of course, only a summary of the challenges facing the country on the way to achieving real peace. The list does not end here and is, unfortunately, freely expandable.
In order to ensure peace, without restoring the institutional governance of the country and without making the political process civilized, without adherence to the formal rules of decision-making within the framework of procedural democracy, without the normalization of the state and social process, any call for peace will remain a cheap and meaningless slogan; an attempt to speculate on the will of the electorate and a short-term political ploy.
Furthermore, in order to achieve real peace, along with a number of domestic measures, the synchronization of the country’s domestic and foreign policies is equally relevant.
From this point of view, the normalization of the internal process in the country should be accompanied by the practicality of the external political and military processes and a focus on getting real results. And such a result is connected, among other things, with the accelerated integration of our country into European and Euro-Atlantic structures. On the path of Euro-Atlantic integration, the subject of a separate discussion is the consultation on additional, so-called “compensation models” of security for the integrated national security system offered by the modern world.
Thus, the deliberate ambiguity created around the question “war or peace?” necessarily requires a direct and principled explanation of the closely related question “peace, by what means?” It is in the context of such candor and integrity that political actors can be compelled to provide the necessary explanations and prepare the ground necessary for voters to make an informed choice.
*Last week, ruling party Georgian Dream released its new election campaign banners. Featuring the inscription “No to war! Choose peace!”, on one side of the banners, the cities and buildings destroyed by Russia in Ukraine are depicted in black-and-white, and on the other side, the freshly renovated cities and buildings of Georgia are shown in color.
Op-Ed by Victor Kipiani, Geocase Chairman
