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A year after violent demonstrations forced the pro-Russian government to withdraw a controversial bill inspired by the Kremlin, the Georgian parliament is poised to pass a similar text. This has led to massive protests in Tbilisi and other cities against a measure seen as inspired by a 2012 Russian law used by the Kremlin to crack down on civil society.
But while the proposed bill in March 2023 concerned local and international observers for its embedded anti-democratic challenge, this time, the anticipation of a devastating threat to the state of Georgian democracy is discussed with consideration of the following factors: firstly, in December 2023, Georgia was granted the candidacy status to the membership of the European Union despite the European Commission's evaluation that the Georgian government had not met the most of the preconditions set by the EU. While renewing the hopes of pro-Western society, this background also contributed to Georgian Dream (GD, the ruling pro-Russian party)'s leverage to justify its "towards Europe, with dignity" slogan.
Secondly, if last year the draft law was initiated by the party’s breakaway group of anti-Western MPs, this time the Law was sponsored and openly backed by the GD itself, marking the new era of openly anti-Western stance officially supported by the governing party in the country. Soon after, six months before the crucial Parliamentary elections, the oligarch and GD leader Bidzina Ivanishvili publicly justified the reorientation of Georgia's foreign policy from the West.
What is up in the Georgian Parliament?
On 3 April, GD's parliamentary majority leader, Mamuka Mdinaradze, announced the reintroducing of the same Russian-style draft law. The only, yet narratively emphasized, difference between the proposed bill and the one that GD was pressured to vote down last year after the protests is that "foreign agent" has been removed from the title and replaced with a vague phrase –"foreign influence." Notably, the public and political discussions still use the word "agent" as a key term.
The same bill under a different name is still very similar to the Russian "foreign agents" legislation, which the Kremlin has instrumentalised to suppress Russian civil society over the last decade. According to the bill, any legal entity receiving more than 20 percent of its finances from a "foreign power" should be registered as an "organisation pursuing the interests of a foreign power" or pay heavy sanctions as fines.
