History is stoking a new conflict in Georgia amid an already divisive election season. The ruling Georgian Dream party provoked outrage among a large swathe of the population when its founder and honorary chairman, Bidzina Ivanishvili, suggested in a recent speech that Georgia might apologize for launching a 2008 attack on the separatist territory of South Ossetia, an action that sparked a brief war with Russia.

“Today, we are well aware that the August War of 2008 was not the wish of either the Georgian or the Ossetian people,” said Ivanishvili, speaking in Gori, a city not far from the Ossetian border. Ivanishvili went on to pin blame for the war on the governing political party at the time, the United National Movement (UNM), which, he implied, “ordered the bloody conflict.”

Repeating a campaign promise, Ivanishvili said that UNM members will face a “Nuremberg”-style trial after the country’s upcoming elections. His vow assumes Georgian Dream’s victory in the October 26 voting is a foregone conclusion.

To many Georgians, Ivanishvili’s comments came across as memory cleansing, an attempt to erase a long legacy of Georgian suffering at the hands of Russia. A 2009 European Union-sponsored report found that Georgia started the 2008 conflict by attacking South Ossetia, but Russia’s response “went far beyond the reasonable limits of defense.” Today, Russia continues to detain locals and build new fortifications along South Ossetia’s de-facto border.

“Georgian society is still traumatized by the war with Russia in 2008,” explained Miro Popkhadze, a regional expert and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Russian bombings and killings of Georgians in the Tskhinvali region are still fresh,” Popkhadze said. “Georgians [consider themselves to be] the victims of the aggressive policies … Moscow has waged in so-called South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the last three decades.”

Tina Bokuchava, UNM’s current leader, described Ivanishvili’s apology comments as “extremely insulting” and “anti-Georgian.”

“I am sure that Bidzina Ivanishvili will receive an answer to this statement from the Georgian people at the October 26 elections,” Bokuchava added.

Representatives of South Ossetia’s de facto political leadership largely greeted Ivanishvili’s apparent olive branch with caution. Georgian media quoted a prominent Ossetian politician, Atsamaz Bibilov, as saying that Georgia should acknowledge its responsibility for starting the war and committing war crimes. “Only then can we consider Georgian politicians’ apologies to be sincere,” he continued.

While mainly serving to stir up political drama, Ivanishvili’s comments make a broader point about how Georgia’s so-called “frozen conflicts” continue to shape the country’s political discourse. Since the 2008 war, little has changed in Georgia’s relations with its two separatist entities, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And Russia continues to use its presence in the regions to stoke fear of another conflict. 

Popkhadze, the regional expert, believes that Ivanishvili’s main goal in revisiting the events of 2008 was to shore up support among Georgian Dream voters with rhetoric that demonizes UNM. An added benefit was suggesting that some sort of rapprochement with South Ossetia is possible, even if reintegration remains unlikely.

“Ivanishvili knows that while his statements don’t necessarily sound appealing to voters in Georgia, the fear of war with Russia and the possibility of reintegration of the breakaway regions into the rest of Georgia, he believes, could win him votes in the upcoming election,” Popkhadze said.