Georgia’s passage of Russian-inspired law pushes country to breaking point

The country of Georgia is being pushed to a breaking point amid unprecedented protests against the government’s pursuit of legislation mirroring Russia’s “foreign agents” law. 

Georgian Dream, the ruling party, succeeded Tuesday in passing its version of such a law, which will require nongovernmental organizations receiving 20 percent of their funding from foreign donors to register with national security services as promoting the interests of a foreign power.

Critics of the law say it will permit the government to criminalize opposition, civil society and pro-democracy groups, further cementing Georgian Dream’s authoritarian turn away from the West. 

Weeks of mass protests on the streets of Tbilisi and warnings from the European Union and U.S. against the law’s passage failed to stop its advancement. And security forces have increasingly exercised violence against peaceful protesters, raising fears of an escalating conflict. 

“It’s really too late for diplomacy,” said William Courtney, former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia, and adjunct senior fellow with RAND. 

“The law is going to be enacted, and most likely the police who are using thuggish methods against the peaceful protesters, those police are likely going to be involved in enforcing this foreign action.”

While security forces have clashed with protesters — with opposition lawmakers beaten up and bloodied, water cannons and tear gas directed at peaceful demonstrators — Courtney was cautious on whether the violence could escalate to the crisis level of movements that have been snuffed out with overwhelming force.

“The amount of peaceful protests by Georgians is almost unprecedented,” he said, likening it to the country’s Rose revolution in 2003, which succeeded in a nonviolent change to democratic governance.

“This looks almost like an effort by the people who want to preserve democracy in Georgia to have another peaceful revolution to protect democracy, but the regime has been using a lot of police force.”

One fearful parallel is how Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko cracked down on popular protests following the 2020 presidential election, with security forces detaining thousands of demonstrators — many still held in jail — and reports of beatings, torture and deaths. 

“It could happen this current government would propose measures that will be as repressive as Belarus; there is that potential, and there’s also a potential that security forces might break at some point,” Courtney added.

“Georgia’s got a lot more civil society than Belarus does. So, the risks that there could be a breach of security forces, the possibility of that breach is probably higher in Georgia than it has been in Belarus,” he said.

Protesters remained on the streets of Tbilisi throughout Tuesday, following the government’s passage of the foreign agents legislation, with live video streams provided by Reuters showing deep lines of black-coated, hooded and masked security forces standing against protesters. 

The protests are likely to continue as the bill heads to the desk of Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili over the course of the next week. She has vowed to veto it, setting up a further showdown between the government and protesters, as Georgian Dream is likely to override the veto — a process that could take a further two weeks. 

“The next 20 days or so are going to be very tense,” said Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute focusing on Europe, Eurasia, NATO and transatlantic relations. 

The Biden administration has, so far, held back from threatening action against Georgia’s government, but American lawmakers are raising sanctions and reassessment of the U.S.-Georgia relationship as an effort to support the mass, popular opposition. 

“The passage of this law will fundamentally change Georgia’s relationship with the United States and damage aspirations for European Union (EU) membership,” said Sens. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), chair of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe, and nine other senators in a statement.

“This is a dark day for Georgian democracy,” they wrote. 

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers had also, earlier, spoken out about the potential for Congress to take action in response to Georgian Dream’s pursuit of the foreign agents law — and likened potential action to steps Congress took to support Belarusian civil society in the early 2000s against Lukashenko’s crackdown.

“Just as Congress took note of the authoritarian descent in Belarus and passed the bipartisan Belarus Democracy Act of 2004, we are determined to respond to further attacks against the prosperous, Euro-Atlantic future that Georgia deserves,” Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in a letter to Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze last week.

“The situation in Georgia is clear. The government can choose to listen to the voices of the Georgian people, or continue down a dark road to Russian-style authoritarianism. We state, in no uncertain terms, that choosing this latter path would cause the United States to fundamentally reassess the nature of our relationship.”

Congress provides millions of dollars annually in funding for Georgia through the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, putting support behind civil society groups; government efforts at democratic reforms and support for security forces. 

Georgia’s military is viewed as a key partner for the U.S. Its forces served alongside NATO troops in Afghanistan. Further, thousands of Georgians have volunteered in Ukraine’s armed forces in its defensive fight against Russia since its 2022 full-scale invasion.

But Georgian Dream — bankrolled and largely influenced by its billionaire founder, former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili — is appearing to prioritize closer ties with Moscow over the West.

Georgian Dream, while rising to power in 2012 on a campaign of closer ties with the EU, has reneged on such promises in favor of balancing interests with Moscow. Twenty percent of Georgian territory is occupied by Russia, which launched an invasion in 2008 in support of separatist forces in the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. 

Ivanishvili, in a rare public address last month, lashed out the U.S. and Europe as being a “global party of war” and advocated for the “foreign agents” bill as protecting against external influence in Georgia’s affairs.

“Georgian Dream is all about preserving power, they position themselves as the only thing standing against another Russian invasion,” said Coffey, of the Hudson Institute.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted fears in Georgia that Russian forces could push for a further land grab in the former Soviet state, a fear that Georgian Dream has seized on to solidify its power.

“Today we have a Georgian Dream government that is, at least, sympathetic to Moscow’s world view,” Coffey said. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say pro-Russian, as a government. Certainly sympathetic.”

While street protests are likely to continue over the next few weeks, Georgian opposition parties are also signaling that their focus is on October elections to pivot the country back to the West. 

“[Tuesday’s] vote will focus minds on the urgent need for regime change in Georgia,” Tina Bokuchava, parliamentary leader of the opposition United National Movement, said in a statement calling for breaking Ivanishvili’s “stranglehold” over Georgia.

“With elections to look forward to in October, I am confident that the unity seen on our streets in recent weeks will prove a watershed moment in our nation’s history.”