The ruling party is determined to oust remaining critics
Originally published on Global Voices
Image by Arzu Geybullayeva
On August 28, Georgian politicians officially kicked off the pre-election campaign ahead of the parliamentary election scheduled for October 26. Meanwhile, the ruling Georgian Dream Party is determined to secure a victory in the upcoming election. Speaking at the grand opening of the ruling party's new headquarters, party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili threatened legal sanctions against opposition figures following the vote. Meanwhile, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze indicated that if they secure a parliamentary majority (113 seats out of 150 seats), they plan to ban numerous opposition political groups. Both the European Union and the United States voiced concerns over threats to ban the opposition.
Georgian domestic politics have had a turbulent few years since the previous parliamentary election in 2020. At the time, Georgia was engulfed in a political crisis, as opposition groups were contesting the results of parliamentary elections won by the ruling Georgian Dream Party. Since then, the country has witnessed a decline in press freedoms and numerous attacks on civil society, including violence against journalists and the overall decline of democracy in the nation. For seven months, between October 2020 and April 2021, opposition parties boycotted the election results. An agreement was eventually reached between the parties on April 19, 2021, with mediation from the United States and the European Union. The deal included a judicial and electoral reforms package. However, months later, the Georgian Dream Party announced its decision to withdraw from the agreement.
Since then, the country has found itself in hot water with Western stakeholders, though that didn't stop the European Council from granting Georgia candidate status on November 8, 2023, paving the way for the bloc to begin the country’s accession process into the EU.
Meanwhile, opposition groups have been setting up coalitions ahead of the scheduled vote, which the ruling Georgian Dream described recently as a referendum between “war and peace, moral degradation and traditional values, subservience to external forces and an independent sovereign state, the collective National Movement and Georgian Dream.” The ruling party has been using the term “collective National Movement” to refer to an undefined list of pro-Western liberal rival groups, applying it to all groups that either spun off from the United National Movement (UNM), are led by former UNM officials, or who the ruling party alleges have cooperated with their primary rivals in some way.
In her briefing after announcing the official date for the upcoming election, President Salome Zurabishvili, who has placed herself at odds with the ruling party through her pro-democracy stances, stressed the importance of the upcoming election, adding this was not a “normal election” but a matter of “saving the future of the country” and a referendum between “Europe or Russia,” “past or progress,” “freedom or slavery,” “dictatorship vs. democracy.”
An international collective of hackers known as Anonymous posted on X warning the Georgian Dream that unless it dropped its intentions to ban the opposition, it would “unleash a storm that [Georgian Dream] cannot control. We will dismantle the very systems you rely on to oppress your people.” According to Civil.ge when the ruling party went ahead with its controversial Foreign Agent Law in May 2024, the group “hacked into the websites of the Georgian Dream and government mouthpiece media outlets POST TV and took down the website of Georgian Foreign Ministry.”
The country formally applied for EU membership in March 2022. In June 2022, Georgia's candidate status was declined, and the EU handed Georgia a list of 12 conditions the country had to fulfill before its application could be reexamined.
Among these conditions were reducing political polarization, reforming the judiciary, ensuring functioning state institutions, strengthening anti-corruption measures, including de-oligarchisation, and others. While the de-oligarchisation clause did not mention any specific names, it was widely understood to refer to the Georgian Dream founder and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Ivanishvili made his fortune in the pre-Putin era in Russia and founded the Georgian Dream party in 2012. After a brief stint as the country's Prime Minister from 2012–2013, Ivanishvili largely exercised his power and influence through his chairmanship of Georgian Dream.
In December 2023, the former PM announced his decision to return to the political scene and shortly after was appointed as the “honorary chair” of the ruling Georgian Dream party. The Georgian billionaire announced his decision just one month after the European Commission recommended that the EU grant Georgia candidate status, paving the way for the bloc to begin the country’s accession process with a caveat that the government meets remaining conditions.
Despite domestic political rifts and a lack of progress on meeting the criteria, the country was finally granted its candidate status in December 2023 during an EU Council meeting.
At the time, Georgia's Prime Minister Gharibashvili and the leading members of the ruling Georgian Dream party insisted the state had fulfilled the necessary requirements.
The EU disagrees. The country's EU accession talks have been put on hold. The decision was announced during a meeting between European leaders in June 2024 in Brussels, citing the aforementioned foreign agent law.
Separately, following the Foreign Affairs Council meeting on June 24 in Luxembourg, Josep Borrell, EU High Representative fro Foreign Affairs and Security Pplicy, said “This law is pushing Georgia away from the European Union, and this statement is supported by 26 out 27 member states. If the government does not change the course of action Georgia will not progress on its EU path.”
In July, Georgia's president, Salome Zourabichvili, submitted an appeal to the country's constitutional court on the grounds the foreign agent bill is “anti-European,” and “therefore unconstitutional.” It remains to be seen whether the country's constitutional court, which has been accused of maintaining ties to the ruling party, will act. The hearings began on August 29 and were scheduled to last until August 31.
The US imposed visa restrictions on an unspecified number of ruling party members and their families and suspended USD 95 million in aid to the Georgian government in response. Meanwhile, the EU canceled EUR 30 million (USD 33 million) in military aid and indicated that Georgia’s bid to join the bloc had been halted.
The bill on foreign agents was first introduced in March 2023 and was met with outspoken public outcry and international criticism, which forced the ruling party to drop the bill. Just over a year later, on April 3, 2024, the Georgian Dream's parliamentary leader, Mamuka Mdinaradze, announced their decision to reconsider the bill. The move was largely viewed as a step to draw the country closer to Russia and silence critics ahead of the upcoming parliamentary vote scheduled for October.
In July, the government set up a Financial Reporting Department within the National Agency of Public Registry, responsible for registering organizations labeled as “carrying out the interests of a foreign power” and monitoring their tax declarations. On August 1, the law came into force. On August 9, the registration portal was officially launched with a deadline announced by the Minister of Justice, that applications for self registration must be submitted by September 1.
The registry was met with criticism for its convoluted and exhaustive forms. Among the requested information are financial declarations covering the fiscal year of 2023, as well as an annual declaration starting from January 2024, indicating each source of financial revenue as well as information on types, purposes, and amounts of monetary or non-monetary revenues; non-financial assets like buildings, construction in progress, equipment, inventory, vehicles; information on properties; financial details including credit card statements, expenses for utilities, stationary, office furniture to name a few.
Organizations that refuse to comply with the law will be subject to a fine of GEL 25,000 (USD 9,200) and forcefully registered by the government. Failure to meet financial declaration obligations after being forcibly registered and labeled as a group “promoting the interests of a foreign power” would lead to GEL 10,000 (USD 3,700) fines.
As of September 3, and as per statement from the Georgia's Deputy Justice Minister, Tamar Tkeshelashvili, only 476 organizations out of what is estimated to be over 30,000 non-for-profit organizations have applied for registration. At the time of writing this story, no single organization has been officially listed as a foreign agent.
