Protesters in Georgia attempted to storm the presidential palace in Tbilisi on the evening of October 4, video reports from the site showed. The dramatic scenes came as tens of thousands of people gathered for a huge demonstration on the day of the country’s local elections. 

Opposition activists had hoped the huge demonstration on local election day would revitalise the protest movement that has endured for almost a year, and had called in advance for a “peaceful overthrow” of the government. 

However, while the numbers — an estimated 100,000 — were high, the opposition did not mobilise to achieve this goal, and the crowds were dispersed by 9pm. 

This keeps Georgia in its months-long stalemate between the protesters and government, in which the government continues to have the upper hand and consolidate its grip on power. 

Election boycott 

The protest took place on the day of Georgia’s local elections, which many opposition parties are boycotting in protest at what they call the authoritarian rule of the Georgian Dream party and its founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. 

Figures from the Central Election Commission (CEC) showed that as of 5pm local time, just three hours before polls were due to close, the turnout was just over 33%. 

Instead of going to vote, thousands of people began gathering along Rustaveli Avenue and Liberty Square in central Tbilisi. Ahead of the demonstration, organisers vowed to overthrow the government and promised to announce a “technical government” by the evening.

An estimate from bne IntelliNews’ reporter on the ground suggested that as many as 100,000 people converged on central Tbilisi, filling the area along Rustaveli Avenue from Liberty Square to the parliament building. 

As the 4pm start time for the rally approached, protesters draped in Georgian and EU flags gathered quietly outside parliament, chatting and smoking beneath walls plastered with anti-government posters and graffiti. Caricatures of Ivanishvili and Russian President Vladimir Putin, both marked with red crosses, symbolised anger at what many see as Georgia’s drift back toward Moscow’s orbit.

Presidential palace attacked 

Reports from several sources said protesters clashed with security forces at the gates of the presidential palace, and were forced back. Reports of arrests have not yet been confirmed. 

Georgian news outlets published footage showing demonstrators attempting to force their way through the main gate. Security forces moved in shortly after, and dispersed the crowd using tear gas. 

Several thousand protesters tried to make their way to the presidential palace, but were blocked by a phalanx of riot police. 

Tensions rose when police put up fences across the road leading to the presidential palace. At one point flames shot into the air when demonstrators set fire to items. A small number of fireworks were also set off. 

Protesters shouted and banged on police shields, holding their ground until massive reinforcements of riot police moved in. 

Georgia’s fifth president, Salome Zurabishvili, commented on Twitter that she suspected the attack was a false flag operation intended to discredit the protest. 

“I’m on Rustaveli Avenue on the 310th day of peaceful protest for Georgia’s European future. The regime’s staged “takeover” of the Presidential Palace is a provocation. We won’t fall for it — we stand for free and fair elections and a European Georgia,” she wrote on X. 

Crowds dispersed 

At around 9pm local time, police used tear gas on the crowd near the flower market on Liberty Square, quickly dispersing protesters. 

bne IntelliNews observed that most of the crowd were young and middle aged people, many of them female, rather than hardcore fighters. 

The line of hardcore younger people at the front of the crowd numbered just a few dozen, too few to fight the police, who were ranged in eight or nine ranks in front of protesters. 

The local elections — boycotted by most of the opposition forces — has become a flashpoint in a crisis that has dragged on for nearly a year. 

Mass demonstrations erupted in late 2024 after disputed parliamentary elections. They became a daily event after the government’s decision to suspend talks on joining the European Union.

Since then, protests have continued across the country, though turnout has waned in the face of a crackdown by security, with arrests of opposition leaders and other protesters and heavy fines. 

The government warned ahead of the protest of the “harshest response” to any attempt at unrest, with several opposition leaders detained in recent days.

Zurabishvili said earlier she would boycott the vote and join Saturday’s rally instead. She is seen by many within Georgia as the country’s legitimate president. They refuse to accept the Georgian Dream-dominated parliament's appointment of its own candidate, former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili, to the presidency. 

“I will not go to the polls tomorrow — I will be with my people at the peaceful rally, like I have been at other important protests, and will remain there as long as necessary,” she said at a briefing. 

She rejected Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s claims that the rally might involve attempts to overthrow the government, calling them “lies and intimidation”. Zurabishvili said the upcoming vote “is not free or fair” and described it as “a farce and a mockery of citizens who have protested peacefully for over 300 days”. 

While opposition leaders and activists push for fresh elections and a return to the EU path, ordinary Georgians express exhaustion and frustration.

Gregory, a taxi driver in Tbilisi, said he had lost faith in the country’s leadership. “You can go to university and get a degree for when you come out [but] one of the few jobs you can get with the salary is working for the police and they pay only between $300 and $600 a month,” he said. 

“How can you live on that? There’s no prospect for anything better. All the money is controlled by those with the money and for the rest of us, we just get on with our lives.”

He, like many other ordinary Georgians, seems resigned to the fact that Georgia’s democracy is no longer functioning.

Western diplomats have warned that a violent crackdown on protesters could jeopardise Georgia’s relations with the European Union, which has already frozen accession talks and threatened sanctions over what it describes as democratic backsliding. There has been a wave of arrests in the run-up to the local election. 

The government, meanwhile, insists it remains committed to stability and warns that attempts to seize power through street action will be met with force.