Summary: Event recording from 1/11/2016 "Elections in Georgia - The road ahead". On the 8th of October Georgians went to the polls to elect a new parliament. This was the first electoral challenge of the 'Georgian Dream' which has had rather unimpressive results over the past four years. Speaker - Dr Thomas de Waal is a non-resident senior associate with Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. From 2010-2015 he worked for the Carnegie Endowment in Washington DC. He is the author of numerous publications about the region. His most recent book is Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is also the author of the authoritative book on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYU Press, second edition 2013) and of The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2010). De Waal has worked extensively as a journalist and writer in the Caucasus and Black Sea region and in Russia, for the BBC, The Times and other outlets. He studied Russian and Modern Greek at Oxford University. Speaker - Maximilian Hess is a political risk analyst based in London, specialising in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Max's work on the region has been featured in a number of publications, including the Telegraph and The Moscow Times. He earned his BA from Franklin & Marshall College, Pennsylvania, and an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His interests include the Georgian language, separatist movements, and European and Eurasian international relations. Speaker - Elene Melikishvili is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies, KCL. Her research focuses on the states and conflicts in the South Caucasus. Her research interests include international relations, foreign policy, development and social empowerment. Elene hold an MA in International Relations from Webster University and she worked in the Parliament of Georgia, the Ministry of Justice and for different non-governmental organisations in Georgia and the UK.
