Article by Alexandre Rakviashvili, Member of the Parliament of Georgia with the Girchi Party.
Liberty is a global movement. Javier Milei’s election as President of Argentina reminded us of that. In every part of the world, from authoritarian regimes like Russia to well-established democracies in Europe, libertarianism is not just a fringe philosophy but a real political alternative to corrupt systems.
In the Republic of Georgia, a former Soviet state that witnessed first-hand the benefits of capitalism after the collapse of the USSR, the Libertarian Party has risen from a third party to becoming a real force in everyday politics. That’s who I represent.
The Libertarian P arty of Georgia is called Girchi. The name itself is a commentary on the ridicule of political party names in Europe, where every country has names that includes “Development” or “Democracy”, or some other vague nonsense.
Girchi rapidly became a movement. Our pinecone logo became part of a real guerilla campaign strategy. If you ever visit Georgia, you’ll see that logo all over the streets of Tbilisi. Just the logo itself has become synonymous with a fight for individual rights.
Today, we have four seats in the Parliament of Georgia, I’m one of them. In the 2020 parliamentary elections, we were the third largest party in the capital, Tbilisi. That gives us the claim of being one of the most successful libertarian movements in Europe. In Parliament, we’ve introduced countless bills to push forward individual liberty. But we’ve also fought successful legal battles. We took the government to our Constitutional Court and won a landmark case that legalized cannabis in 2018.
These successes have made reactionary forces well aware of who we are. One of our largest victories had been the creation of the Church of Biblical Freedom, a Christian church based on the principles of libertarian Christianity, with which we saved tens of thousands of young Georgians from military conscriptions by ordaining them as priests. Last month, the Ministry of Defense of Georgia introduced a major ‘Defense Code’ aimed specifically against us to end the faith exemption to conscription (unless you’re a priest with the Georgian Orthodox Church).
The Georgian Government, starting with the Prime Minister, specifically named our party as the reason for the bill. Now, it’s set to coerce tens of thousands of young Georgians into slave jobs. We have been fighting against this bill in Parliament for nine months and even though it passed, our Church continues to help individuals avoid military conscription. Our fight continues and we will never back down.
Georgia, like many other European countries, lack the colorful political debates that the United States has. Our parties aren’t divided by ideological lines, they just evolve around single leaders and wherever their funding comes from. We are the only political party with a clear ideology and that’s the key to our success. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Georgians want low taxes, low regulations, and fear inflation as the greatest economic challenge of our time. We also happen to be the only political party to have introduced a bill to create a Special Investigative Commission in Parliament to audit the Central Bank.
And we introduced our own digital currency, the Georgian Dollar (GeD), which also serves as our tool of internal democracy: one GeD equals one vote in all primaries. Our entire party is based on meritocracy.
That’s why our popularity is rising. The Georgian people wants freedom, and we’re the only ones they can trust to really deliver. Consider that there are close to 300 parties registered in Georgia, 15 of which have seats in Parliament.
There’s a lot we can teach the American liberty movement, just like there’s a lot we can learn from the birthplace of the modern libertarian philosophy. We’ll be visiting the United States soon to meet with fellow liberty activists, but we also hope as many of you can visit Georgia as soon as you can. Our doors are always open for new friends.
You can follow and message me on X at @MPRakviashvili
George,
RE: Would readers find more coverage of Libertarians abroad to be a good idea?
Works for me.
All my websites are down for various reasons from a massive overhaul in the approach to censorship, and it will probably be a year or two before I (or Kira Washington, my daughter) will do anything to restore. This is a vacuum of info on world libertarian activity, so an opportunity for you.
Thanks,
MG
The freedom movement is indeed worldwide, as I’ve been stressing for years, and the recent history-making election of Javier Milei as president of Argentina reflects.
The international character of our movement highlights the importance of freedom of movement and other civil liberties related to the ability to migrate, travel, work, move assets, and connect across national borders.
From this article and a couple other pieces I’ve seen during the past several years, Girchi sounds like one of the more vibrant and exciting libertarian parties in the world. I’d love to meet some of their activists if they come to this country, and would be happy to help organize/host an event here in San Francisco.
To answer your question directly George, yes, more coverage of (L)ibertarians around the world – and people fighting for freedom who may not (yet) identify as libertarians, in places from Hong Kong to Sudan – would be welcome.
There has been a remarkable amount of interest in this article. Would readers find more coverage of Libertarians abroad to be a good idea?
Congratulations to Alexandre Rakviashvili and the Libertarian Party of the Republic of Georgia!
I really enjoyed their posts at Libertarian International org Facebook before it went down.
These are real wildmen, so to speak. Talk to the people, get things done, lots of political theater/control the narrative chops.
Georgia is a small country doing great things.