The majority of the published programs, except for European Georgia and Lelo, do not single out the issue of non-dominant ethnic groups in separate chapter or subchapter. Analysis of political parties' pre-election programs reveals that parties are often unaware of the needs, concerns, and challenges of non-dominant ethnic groups. Pre-election programs often reveal parties’ trivial and superficial views on the protection of the rights of non-dominant ethnic groups and their participation in public and political life. Attempts to offer different narratives and texts by several parties are noteworthy in this regard. However, it should be mentioned that their programs are still fragmental and artificial.

To protect the rights of non-dominant ethnic groups and ensure their real participation in public political life, basically, two theories of change are offered in the programs of the political subjects registered in the 2020 parliamentary elections: state language teaching to minorities and eradication of discrimination facts. It is noteworthy, that almost all pre-election programs see the solution in teaching the state language to minorities, which is one of the major challenges for non-dominant ethnic groups to participate in public life. However, no political party states anything, on the one hand, about strengthening the voice of those citizens who already know the state language, and on the other hand, about ensuring the political participation of people who do not know and can not learn the state language due to their socio-economic conditions, age, or the place of residence. In this regard, the program of the ruling party, Georgian Dream, can be emphasized, which covers the issue of participation of non-dominant ethnic groups in public and political life in only one sentence and focuses only on state language teaching.

One of the most widespread theories of change - eliminating discrimination and ensuring equality before the law - is shared equally by most opposition parties. European Georgia, United National Movement - Power is in Unity and Girch focuses on the elimination of all forms of discrimination and equality before the law, where the main subjects of their theoretical framework are individuals and their individual freedom and not social groups and their collective rights. These political parties say almost nothing about the legal, social and power asymmetry of non-dominant ethnic groups and special policies and interventions to address these issues. In the program proposed by the United National Movement, we read: "All citizens are equal before the law and this will be guaranteed by an independent judiciary and a politically neutral administrative body." This statement about a politically neutral administrative body seems to imply cultural neutrality as well. However, our work with non-dominant ethnic groups shows that administrative bodies violate the principle of religious and cultural neutrality and often reveal loyalty to dominant religious institutions or social groups while exercising their powers. In this situation, it remains unclear with what specific methods and how the United National Movement intends to ensure the mentioned neutrality in the minority regions and the country in general. According to the party program, to pursue an effective anti-discrimination policy, an internal mechanism for reviewing complaints on discrimination in all public institutions will be established. This is indeed an interesting measure to eradicate discrimination, however, in existing reality when as a result of systemic barriers, the representatives of non-dominant ethnic groups cannot get employed in the public sector and neither public services are accessible for them, this mechanism remains without function and useless. For the efficiency of this proposal, it is first and foremost necessary to develop a strategy to employ non-dominant ethnic groups in the public sector and also to eliminate the causes of alienation between state institutions and ethnic minorities.

From the veiwpoint of the New Political Center - Girchi, it is clear that the party does not recognize the different identities of Georgian citizens and emphasizes Georgian citizenship instead of talking about minorities. The introduction of a unifying framework against the growing and politically instrumentalized chauvinistic tendencies is indeed important, however, this statement highlights the blindness towards the specific oppression, exclusion, and challenges of non-dominant groups.

European Georgia focuses on the elimination of discrimination and punishing oppression and violence in its program, which, as already mentioned, in the context of the strengthening existing chauvinist and ethno-nationalist rhetoric, may be considered a progressive approach. It should be noted, however, that punitive approaches, in line with international practice, often aggravate chauvinistic and ethno-nationalist rhetoric, while European Georgia says nothing about the structural social and political reasons that fuel chauvinism and ethnonationalism. At the same time, European Georgia states in its program that "we will ensure minorities are not oppressed in state agencies and they have access to state services like other citizens." But it says nothing about how and by what methods they intend to achieve this.

According to the Strategy Builder program, full integration of non-dominant ethnic groups into public and political life is not possible only through the refinement of legislation. From the perspective of Strategy Builder, stereotypes, and prejudices in society slow down the process of achieving equality. It is welcoming that this political union considers coordinated work of the civil sector, private sector, and the state essential to achieve equality for non-dominant ethnic groups, and emphasizes the need for proactive and preventive measures by the state. According to the Strategy Builder, it is critical to raise public awareness and plan educational activities not only for the general public but also for public officials and law enforcement officials "to increase their tolerance towards various vulnerable groups." However, the party says nothing about the needs, concerns, and challenges of these groups. Besides, the party does not single out issues of non-dominant groups as a separate chapter or sub-chapter in the program published on its website. Moreover, in its program, the party does not even mention non-dominant ethnic groups once.

The vision proposed by the Labor Party, despite the fragmentation of their ideas, clearly shows an attempt to introduce new perspectives. It is noteworthy that the party highlights the issue of knowledge of both languages (state and minorities) among teachers working in regions populated by non-dominant ethnic groups. Also, it considers critically important to set a 5% quota on state grants and funding for non-dominant ethnic groups. In addition, an essentially new approach is developed by the Labor Party on access to information, which implied adaptation of all government sites and e-services to minorities and non-dominant ethnic groups.

According to the Lelo for Georgia program, the party plans to actively involve non-dominant ethnic groups in the state’s political life, to provide access to quality education and promote Georgian language teaching. It should be noted that according to Lelo, as a result of the 10-year program proposed by them, "the number of those who do not know the Georgian language will be less than 1% of the Georgian population." However, even at the level of hints, the programs says nothing about how Georgian language education will be provided to the population outside the institutional systems of education (middle and upper-middle age people). This issue is closely linked to the participation of non-dominant ethnic groups in public and political life. Often, especially at the self-government level, non-dominant ethnic groups are unable to engage in public and political life due to a lack of state language knowledge, while Lelo says nothing about what mechanisms will increase the political participation of non-dominant groups if they do not know the state language. Lelo's statement that "Lelo will change the policy vector for ethnic and religious minorities is important – less involvement of minorities in state’s political life and governance system will be assessed as a threat to the state and not their ‘excessive’ political activity (as it has been for decades)”. Such formulation of this issue is a transformational and new vision in Georgian politics and party programs. However, it is also fundamentally important to create institutional and political guarantees that will facilitate the participation of ethnic minorities in political life and increase communication and trust towards government agencies.

It is noteworthy that Lelo is critical of the activities of the Ministry of Reconciliation and Civic Equality and the Agency for Religious Affairs. Under the Lelo program, civic equality issues should be separated from the Ministry of Reconciliation and a Civic Equality Agency should be set up to work on issues of non-dominant ethnic and religious groups. In our opinion, this approach is interesting, however, it requires additional clarifications from the party, including the mandate and arrangement of the new agency, as well as relations and cooperation strategies with organizations working to protect the rights of religious and ethnic minorities.

Lelo's promise to create quality textbooks for non-dominant ethnic groups in their native language and literature is welcomed. However, given that such a promise has long been issued by the Ministry of Education, Lelo’s explanation would be interesting, where they see the problem in the current situation and why such textbooks have not been created to date, resulting in Lelo explaining what and how it would change.

According to the Lelo's proposal, a new school subject - "Diverse Georgia" will be introduced in public schools to raise awareness about Georgia's ethnic and religious minorities. However, nothing is said about how this school subject will differ from the existing civic education subject, which has the same objectives.

It should be noted that despite the numerous criticisms and dissatisfaction voiced in recent years on the problem of political participation of ethnic minorities, most of the political parties’ programs do not provide special visions and reformist ideas on this issue. The parties do not address the problem of lack of consultative mechanisms at the executive and legislative levels,[1] nor the issues of special mechanisms for minority political participation, for example, recognized mechanisms such as quotas, reserved seats, incentives for parties through funding, or ethnic parties.[2]

The issue of informative isolation and alienation of non-dominant ethnic groups should be mentioned separately, as well as the problems of Public Broadcaster coverage in languages understandable to ethnic minorities focused on their needs and interests, [3] which was once again demonstrated during the pandemic and military escalation in Karabakh. Unfortunately, these issues were not among the interest areas of political parties.

Even more unrecognized and invisible are the issues of the special vulnerability of ethnic minorities and their limited access to public services, vital resources, and social infrastructure. The parties, unfortunately, do not understand the reality that political and cultural isolation not only damages the democratic processes but also hinders the social development of these groups, further impoverishes them, and creates a clearly unfavorable social environment.

In summary, the main narratives of the parties are largely aimed at teaching the language to non-dominant ethnic groups, identifying and punishing cases of discrimination, and thus, the parties use more outdated paradigms. Apart from several cases, no political party speaks about the real needs, concerns, and challenges of non-dominant ethnic groups, which is represented in several studies[4] and recommendation packages. [5] At the same time, none of the parties offer specific mechanisms that would not only trivially talk about achieving equality in the country, but also would create new visions, policies, and mechanisms for real participation of ethnic minorities in public life, generate a fair political and social environment and build a multicultural environment. The parties' visions do not represent the structural, critical analysis of the integration policy pursued so far, and the nuanced perspectives of change, new alternatives, and ways.

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