After America’s top diplomat Mike Pompeo promised a smooth transition to a “second Trump administration,” he booked himself on a foreign trip, presumably, to get away from the toxic atmosphere of Washington D.C. Next week, he will be swinging through France, Turkey, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Georgia, the country, not the state, where he will spend two days.

When he arrives in the capital Tbilisi, Pompeo will find a situation eerily similar to the one he may be trying to escape: rising Covid-19 numbers and big street protests over a bitter, disinformation-mired election dispute. And while Pompeo is a lame duck diplomat in much of the world, his visit to the small South Caucasus nation could alter history. 

On October 31, Georgians voted in a highly contested parliamentary election. After eight years on the political sidelines, the opposition thought it stood a chance of at least diluting the power of the ruling Georgian Dream party. 

But according to the opposition, the game was rigged from the start. The election was marred by disinformation and allegations of vote buying. And once the ballots were cast, evidence of fraud began to emerge. In over a hundred polling stations, for example, no one voted for the opposition  — a statistical impossibility in a politically divided Georgia. In some areas, the vote totals cast for the ruling party were greater than the number of people who actually voted.