The level of annoyance among the populace may have been underestimated by the ruling Georgian Dream party.

I dashed into a church on Rustaveli Avenue, directly across from Georgia's parliament building, through a spooky blue fog. Through clouds of tear gas, demonstrators were being pursued by masked riot police. It sticks to your lungs and makes breathing difficult.

To stop the burning, those inside used saline eyewashes to clean each other's eyes. However, the church, which served as a haven during the anti-Soviet demonstrations in 1989, began to fill with smoke as police detonated further gas canisters at its doors. "I shouldn't have entered this enclosed space," I thought. However, going outdoors put one at risk of being arrested.

Where is the church? A guy yelled at the confused priests, who were starting to gasp as well. The Patriarch is where? The ruling party's main backer, the Georgian Patriarchate, had earlier that day urged both sides to abstain from violence. Soon after, other demonstrators stepped in and attempted to soothe the man.

Sunday's spectacle, which marked the capital's fourth day of protests in a row, mirrored Georgia's recently heightened political divisions, with a government using force to consolidate power against protesters who refused to back down.

The Georgian Dream party-controlled administration had said on November 28 that it would postpone its application to join the European Union until at least 2028. The protesters believe that an increasingly authoritarian party with Russian connections is retreating from Georgia's pro-European goals. Tens of thousands of people have participated in the large-scale, and more crucially, unplanned protests. Days of beatings and arrests haven't stopped the demonstrations. Additionally, they have moved to smaller cities from the capital.

The reaction to the October 26 legislative elections, which were denounced by the European Parliament and denounced as a fraud by local opponents, has dramatically escalated. Regardless of the degree of wrongdoing by the administration, however, the opposition seems to have failed to inspire voters to cast ballots. The protests that followed to denounce the anomalies lacked enthusiasm as well.