Despite the clamor in the streets and universities; the complaints of the opposition, the president and the Ombudsman, and the criticism of a European Union of which it is opting to be a member, the Georgian Parliament approved this Tuesday the controversial Transparency Law on Foreign Influence, a draconian text that It puts at risk projects that receive funding from abroad: from agricultural cooperatives to women’s associations and organizations that protect human rights.
In a chamber surrounded by the police to prevent the advance of the thousands of protesters gathered outside – harshly repressed by the officers – and after a very angry debate session – in which there were insults, attempts at aggression and the deputies of the opposition faced obstacles to voting—the ruling party, Georgian Dream, and its parliamentary partners asserted their majority to ratify the law in its third and final reading with 84 votes in favor out of 150 seats. All despite the fact that last year they had withdrawn a similar proposal and promised not to vote on it again after the popular protests it triggered.
Now, the text will be sent to the president, Salomé Zurabishvili, who has already announced her veto. The head of state, elected by popular vote in 2018 with the support of Georgian Dream – from which she later distanced herself – has shown her support for the massive protests that the Caucasian country has experienced in the last two months against the russian lawnamed after its inspiration in similar legislation adopted by the Kremlin in the last decade and which has suffocated civil society in that country.
“I have vetoed the offshore law and I will continue to veto any bill that contradicts Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” Zurabishvili published at the beginning of the month on the social network will allow the repatriation of capital without paying taxes. The latter is a law tailored to the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, former prime minister, founder and honorary president of Georgian Dream, who is considered the country’s shadow leader.
However, the presidential veto will only serve to force the chamber to a new vote, after which the text will become law. Timing is crucial: the Government’s objective is for the legislation to come into force before the start of the election campaign at the end of October, since it will greatly affect human rights and electoral monitoring organizations that, in a poor country like Georgia (with a per capita income of about 6,000 euros per year, about five times less than Spain), they survive thanks to subsidies from European and North American institutions. For these elections, Sueño Georgiano has an advantage in the polls against a fragmented opposition, but its absolute majority could be in jeopardy given that the election system will be completely proportional (until now, almost half of the deputies were elected by a single-member system and, the rest, by a proportional system).
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In response to the approval of the law, the United National Movement, the main opposition force, announced that it will leave Parliament along with several independent deputies. Other parties have called for the formation of a united opposition front before the elections and have demanded that President Zurabishvili lead it.
Blacklists
Under the new law, any organization that receives more than 20% of its funding from abroad must be registered as an “agent of the interests of a foreign power” and the Georgian Ministry of Justice will carry out inspections on them every six months. which, according to critics, could force the handover of internal and confidential documents, communications. The Ombudsman, Levan Ioseliani, had asked the deputies of the ruling bloc to “amend” the current draft law or abstain from voting and focus on improving the current legislation on financing. “All laws passed by the Georgian Parliament should be in line with our European aspirations,” he warned.
The leader of the Georgian Dream parliamentary group, Mamuka Mdinaradze, stated that the law will simply increase the “transparency” and “independence of Georgia” by making it possible to know “who finances” each organization. But no one trusts a party that, as the months go by, acquires increasingly authoritarian overtones, and that last week announced the creation of a database “on-line and public” of those who have participated in protests against the law and have supported “violence, threats and blackmail.” All this while members of the opposition and critical activists have received brutal beatings by police officers and unidentified individuals.
Despite this, the political and social opposition has been very combative and has promised to continue the mobilizations. Students from around thirty universities have gone on strike and taken to the streets despite the rectors’ request to “not bring politics to the campuses.” “The way this bill has been passed, with opposition politicians silenced through legal tricks in the corridors of power, while protesters were mercilessly beaten and arrested by police, demonstrates the damaging impact of the legislation, whose The objective is, clearly, human rights,” denounced the director of Amnesty International for the Eastern Europe region, Marie Struthers.
Applause from Russia, criticism from the West
Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, applauded the law passed by Georgia and “the strong desire of Georgian leaders to protect their country from interference in its internal affairs,” while several European leaders and even the office of The UN in Georgia criticized it and regretted its approval. James O’Brien, the undersecretary of the United States Department of State for Eurasian issues, began a visit to Georgia on Tuesday to discuss the situation with members of the opposition, civil society and the Government, because, after the approval of the law , the Caucasian country – which has received billions of dollars in US aid – could face sanctions.
Former Prime Minister Ivanishvili refused to meet with him and other delegations from European countries, justifying it – as the current Prime Minister, Irakli Kobajidze, said on his behalf – that he will not receive any foreign emissary until he recovers the more than 1,000 million euros that the Credit Suisse bank owes him for a long legal dispute that he has had since the last decade. According to Kobajidze, the powerful tycoon’s money has been seized by the “Global War Party”, a term commonly used by Ivanishvili and the Kremlin to criticize the West for its support of Ukraine. The country’s shadow strongman has been looking for months to find a way to repatriate his funds in Switzerland or move them to another jurisdiction.
Georgian Dream came to power in 2012, riding a wave of discontent with the neoliberal policies of the then head of state, Mikhail Saakashvili, and his growing authoritarianism. The party has won every election since then thanks to a more social policy and achieving a certain balance between its relations with the West and Russia (which still occupies the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in Georgian territory). However, and in a similar way to its neighbors Russia and Turkey, as it has taken over all the institutions, Georgian Dream has become more authoritarian and has entered an ultra-conservative path, approving various laws that make it difficult for women to incorporate into politics and attack what they consider “gender ideology” and “LGTBI propaganda.”
Despite this, in response to the pro-European aspirations of the majority of the population (80% of Georgians support accession to the EU) and as a reward for the withdrawal of the foreign agents law proposed last year, in December, the EU summit gave Georgia candidate status. The green light for opening accession negotiations should come at the end of this year, but given the approval of the foreign agents law, this is unlikely to happen.
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