Georgia may be gripped by a major political crisis, but that is hardly a reason to put off Christmas as far as Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze is concerned. Over the past week, the mayor has stubbornly tried to get the deeply divided nation to embrace a festive mood, inviting citizens to attend the annual lighting of Christmas/New Year tree on December 14 at the site of nearly daily clashes between riot police and thousands of protesters.

“They put up a New Year tree even in times of war,” reasoned Kaladze, a fashionable former soccer star and key figure in the ruling Georgian Dream party’s leadership, asking citizens to bring their kids to the gas-saturated downtown Tbilisi for the occasion.

When the day came, the scene in the downtown was hardly family-friendly. The massive New Year tree – a decorated evergreen mainly symbolizes the New Year in Georgia rather than Christmas – stood guarded by a heavy police cordon. The rest of the area was filled with crowds of protesters, who held up photos of journalists and protesters brutally beaten by riot police in previous days. Water cannon trucks and riot troops stood at the ready … just in case the celebratory intent turned confrontational.

Municipal officials were reportedly pressured to bring their families to the event, but only a few enthusiastic adults showed up and there were no kids in sight. The awkward scene dragged on for some time until the festive event was postponed. 

Two days later, Kaladze turned the switch on the tree and festive lights elsewhere in the city without any celebration. He blamed the predictable-yet-extraordinary holiday event failure on the demonstrators and vowed that Santa was going to come to Tbilisi no matter what. 

The tree-lighting fail illustrates how Georgia is now divided into two parallel worlds, light years apart in their perception of reality, with their differences playing out on the streets or in the media. The nation even has two presidents now, outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili and President-elect Mikheil Kavelashvili, each representing one of the two rival worlds. 

Popularly elected six years ago, Zourabichvili is an ardent champion of Georgia’s integration into Western political and economic institutions, especially the European Union. Today, she effectively leads the resistance to the Georgian Dream government’s anti-Western and anti-democratic slide, and is regarded by protesters as the only legitimate authority in the country, given the widespread irregularities that were documented during parliamentary elections in late October.

Kavelashvili is an anti-western hardliner and, much like Mayor Kaladze, a former soccer player with a carefully manicured coiffure. He was unilaterally elected by Georgian Dream members through an electoral college vote held on the very day, when Kaladze failed to get citizens excited about his tree. When Georgian Dream’s electors cast their votes for Kavelashvili inside the parliament, demonstrators played soccer outside in protest.

Protesters say that the Georgian Dream and, by extension Kavelashvili, lost all legitimacy after rigging the October 26 parliamentary election, throwing the nation off its pro-Western course and then using brutal police tactics to crush the consequent demonstrations. They march daily in the streets of Tbilisi and other cities, demanding a rerun of the parliamentary election. They also demand release of scores of protesters controversially detained since demonstrations broke out in response to Georgian Dream’s stepping away from the nationally backed goal of joining the EU.

The resistance has spread to all areas, including academia, business and government. Various professional guilds and demographic groups, such as mothers, grandparents and individuals from specific regions of the country, have been organizing separate demonstrations. Diplomats and government officials have been taking turns to quit their offices in protest. 

Some 130 and counting employees of Kaladze’s own office signed off on a statement critical of Georgian Dream’s policies. In response, Kaladze said that a wave of layoffs was underway at the mayor’s office. 

Still, Georgian Dream proceeds with holiday preparations and government functions and appears to be in denial of sprawling resistance at home, and criticism and sanctions pouring in from abroad. 

On December 16, EU foreign ministers supported plans to impose sanctions against the Georgian government in response to Georgian Dream’s anti-EU moves and attacks on civil liberties. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, however, inexplicably thanked Italy, Spain and Romania, suggesting that these countries voted against the motion. 

Foreign ministries of all three countries responded with baffled statements, saying that they fully support the call for sanctions and that they do not understand what the Georgian prime minister is talking about. “Deeply disappointed about the choice of presenting inaccurately internal discussion at EU level,” said Romanian Foreign Ministry. 

“Disinformation is a threat to our democracies that we will always oppose,” said Spain’s Foreign Ministry. 

Back on the home front, Mayor Kaladze is preparing to hold grand celebrations on New Year’s Eve. Despite the tree-lighting flop, the mayor insists nothing can stop his plans to throw a big party in the center of Tbilisi to celebrate 2025. Protesters say that they intend to show up on that night, just like they do every night. 

President-elect Kavelashvili, for his part, is getting ready to be inaugurated, but President Zourabichvili indicated she has no intention of ceding her office to Kavelashvili, citing the illegitimacy of the body that elected him. “There will be no inauguration, my mandate will be extended,” said Zourabichvili, who is campaigning internationally to pressure Georgia Dream to agree to a snap election.

When she noticed that the Tbilisi Mayor’s Office placed Christmas decorations in the shape of a train in front of her palace, she wrote on Facebook: “They put a train here […], let’s see who is going to ride away on it.”