Georgia will hold crucial parliamentary elections on Oct. 26 that some experts believe could determine the country’s geopolitical trajectory.
“The outcome of the election will decide not just future foreign policy but Georgia’s history for years to come,” Giorgi Badridze, a political analyst and former Georgian diplomat, told The Epoch Times.
While Georgia, a former Soviet republic, has long sought to join the EU and NATO, its ruling Georgian Dream party is accused by critics of seeking to steer the small South Caucasus nation back into Moscow’s orbit.
In power since 2012, Georgian Dream is set to face off against a loose coalition of pro-Western opposition parties in parliamentary polls slated for Oct. 26.
“If Georgian Dream stays in power, Georgia will find itself in deep political and economic isolation,” Badridze, who served as Tbilisi’s ambassador to London from 2009 to 2013, said.
“If the opposition coalition wins, Georgia will return to the Western course and double down on the process of integration.”
Tbilisi has not had diplomatic relations with Moscow since the five-day war in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Nevertheless, Georgian Dream’s detractors accuse the party of emulating “repressive” Russian tactics and alienating Georgia’s Western partners.
According to Badridze, Georgian Dream has been “copying Russian political methods of stifling its opponents, and, in the last two years, it started deploying Russian-style anti-Western propaganda.”
‘Russian Law’ Sparks Controversy
As proof of the ruling party’s pro-Kremlin leanings, critics point to a “Transparency of Foreign Influence Law,” adopted this summer by Georgia’s Parliament.The law requires organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “organizations pursuing foreign interests” or face financial penalties.
Despite strenuous objections from Brussels and Washington, Georgia’s Parliament—in which Georgian Dream and its allies currently hold a majority—ratified the legislation in May.
Proponents of the law say it is needed to protect Georgia from malign foreign influences operating under the guise of “civil society.”
They also say it is needed to safeguard Georgia’s national sovereignty and combat “pseudo-liberal values” imposed by foreign—particularly Western—entities.
“If nongovernmental organizations and mass media want to ... influence the life of the Georgian people with funding from foreign governments, they must meet the minimum standard of transparency,” Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili told the assembly after the law was ratified.
“The public must know who is behind each actor.”
However, critics—both domestic and foreign—say Georgia’s foreign influence law will stifle free speech and expression and derail the country’s EU membership bid.
They derisively call it the “Russian law,” comparing it to legislation ostensibly used by the Kremlin to crack down on dissent.
“We refer to it as the ‘Russian law’ because it directly targets the independence of NGOs, media, and civil society,” Badridze said.
The weeks leading up to the law’s adoption saw several large protests in Tbilisi, during which anti-law protesters frequently clashed with Georgian police.
Moscow denies any association with Georgia’s foreign influence law or its recent ratification by Georgia’s Parliament.
Those defending the law say that numerous other countries, including Western ones, have similar laws on the books.
This includes the United States, which has had its own Foreign Agents Registration Act in effect since 1938.
According to Russian political analyst Stanislav Aleksandrovich Pritchin, Georgia’s foreign influence law is considerably less stringent than corresponding legislation in other countries.
Unlike similar legislation in both Russia and the United States, he said, Georgia’s foreign influence law “doesn’t let the government shut down organizations or suspend their activities.”
“It’s about transparency,” Pritchin, who heads the Central Asia desk at Russia’s Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told The Epoch Times.
Law Draws Western Ire
Georgia’s adoption of the law in May drew negative reactions from Washington and Brussels, which have accused Georgian Dream of engaging in a host of undemocratic practices.Washington says it has since conducted a full review of its relations with Georgia, and the Pentagon indefinitely postponed joint U.S.–Georgia military drills.
The State Department has also imposed a raft of restrictions on Georgian officials, accusing them of “undermining freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, violently attacking peaceful protesters, intimidating civil society representatives, and deliberately spreading disinformation.”
Brussels, meanwhile, has reportedly suspended Georgia’s EU candidate status, which it granted the country late last year.
It has also threatened to suspend the EU’s visa-free travel regime with Georgia if the upcoming election is not found to be free and fair.
Earlier this month, Pawel Herczynski, the EU’s envoy to Tbilisi, said Georgia may even become the target of sanctions if “things really go wrong with the elections.”
Since Tbilisi adopted the controversial law, Washington and Brussels have also suspended millions of dollars and euros in scheduled assistance to Georgia.
Georgian Dream has responded by accusing the West of resorting to “threats and blackmail” and seeking to sway the upcoming poll in favor of the opposition.
This week, the UK abruptly canceled security talks with Georgian officials, citing concerns over alleged “democratic backsliding” and anti-Western rhetoric by the ruling party.
“We were concerned when Parliament adopted legislation to restrict civil society, especially after it had seen the strength of public opposition,” Gareth Ward, London’s envoy to Tbilisi, said in an Oct. 15 interview.
He also accused Georgian Dream of promoting “conspiracy theories” that Western powers sought to undermine Georgia in advance of the parliamentary elections on Oct. 26.
Speaking to local media, Archil Gorduladze, a ruling party lawmaker, described the British envoy’s remarks as “gross interference” in Georgia’s domestic affairs.
Badridze downplayed the severity of the Western measures, saying Georgian Dream’s claims about foreign interference were exaggerated.
“What Georgian Dream describes as ‘Western interference’ is a string of statements by the EU and the freezing of financial aid and high-level contacts,” he said.
“Georgia has declared its ambition to join the EU and currently has candidate-country status,” Badridze, a senior fellow at the Tbilisi-based Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, said.
“This means it is the duty of EU institutions to tell the Georgian government if their policies and actions contradict EU norms and standards.”
Fears of Post-Election Unrest
Some observers say the Western measures could backfire by stoking support for the ruling party—and pushing Georgia into Moscow’s arms.“These sanctions on Georgia, particularly by the United States, and the suspension of its EU membership bid, leave Tbilisi with no choice but to open the door to Russia,” Mehmet Seyfettin Erol, a Turkish political analyst, said.
“Such actions strengthen pro-Russian sentiment in Georgia and deepen distrust of the West,” Erol, founder and president of the Ankara Center for Crisis and Policy, told The Epoch Times.
“Does the West, which claims Georgian Dream will bring the country into the Russian orbit, not see that such moves prepare favorable ground for Russia?”
Pritchin voiced similar sentiments, saying the West’s punitive measures would likely bolster public support for Georgian Dream ahead of next week’s poll.
“I can’t say how these measures will affect the choices of ordinary Georgians in the parliamentary election,” he said.
“But this kind of [Western] pressure tends to strengthen the argument of the ruling party and its supporters.”
Some leading members of Georgian Dream have claimed that Western intelligence agencies, with the help of local proxies, plan to incite civil unrest in Georgia if the ruling party wins the election.
In broadcast remarks on the same day, Papuashvili warned of an impending constitutional coup.
Moscow has made similar claims in the past.
In June, Mikhail Galuzin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, accused Western powers of seeking to escalate the situation in Georgia ahead of the polls with the aim of toppling the current government.
In August, Russia’s foreign intelligence service claimed that the United States was laying the groundwork for a “color revolution” in Georgia.
Pritchin, for his part, declined to rule out the possibility of covert interference by foreign actors.
“We have seen several recent examples of overt Western pressure on Georgia,” he said.
“Meanwhile, we see attempts to use activists on the ground—and Western-backed NGOs—to promote anti-government statements, meetings, and other actions.”
Washington has consistently dismissed such assertions, which have not been accompanied by any evidence, as “Russian disinformation.”
Badridze also rejected the claims, saying that “a fear of ‘color revolutions’ is common among authoritarian regimes.”
“Such regimes don’t believe people have a say in politics and consider any criticism and resistance solely in terms of foreign conspiracy,” he said.
