Protests against a Russian-style law threaten Georgia’s government

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the Georgian oligarch who dominates the country’s politics from behind the scenes, emerged on April 29th for a rare public appearance. It was an ominous one. He accused the West of using Georgian NGOs and opposition parties to organise a “revolution” against his party, and promised retribution after elections this autumn. Anti-government protests, meanwhile, have been growing. After police used tear gas to break up demonstrations, shops in Tbilisi quickly sold out of gas masks and goggles as protesters girded for more.

The most serious political crisis in the 12-year rule of the Georgian Dream party is entirely of its own making. It was prompted by the party’s unexpected reintroduction in early April of a “foreign agent” law that would require NGOs and media outlets which get more than 20% of their funding from abroad to enter themselves into a public registry. The party tried to pass the same law in 2023. Then, too, it spurred huge protests and sharp warnings from Georgia’s American and European partners. The law looks like an imitation of similar measures in Russia, which has used the “foreign agent” label to silence critical voices. The resistance drove Georgian Dream to withdraw the bill.

The decision to bring it back now at first appears foolhardy. Party leaders insist it is needed to regain sovereignty from an NGO sector propped up by Western money. In a rally to drum up support for the bill, Mr Ivanishvili, who founded the party and is now its honorary chairman, claimed that opposition leaders are “ordered and directed by their masters from outside”. The speech set off alarm bells in Western capitals, which are accustomed to more deference from Tbilisi. The State Department issued a statement headlined “Georgia’s Western Trajectory at Risk” and calling the law “Kremlin-inspired”.

Georgian Dream still says it wants to join the European Union, and the country gained candidate status last year. The party’s leaders may be inspired less by Russia than by Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who passed a similar foreign-agent law in 2017 (though Europe’s top court struck it down). In his speech, Mr Ivanishvili promised to enter the EU by 2030, but on conditions that evoked Mr Orban’s populist rhetoric. “It is with [our] unique national traditions and identity that we should join the common European family,” he said.

The party’s opponents, though, doubt the sincerity of those European intentions. Many of the young people who have been gathering for nightly protests in front of parliament are convinced that the party is carrying out orders from the Kremlin and see the law as a deliberate attempt to spoil Georgia’s bid to join Europe. “They are serving the Russian government, they have been given their assignment,” said Misha, a protester who declined to give his last name. “We have to fight for Georgia’s European future. We are fighting for this European future for the past 30 years.”

Some foreign analysts agree that Mr Ivanishvili wants to prod the EU to quash his country’s candidacy. Following the bloc’s rules limits his ability to run the country as he would like. Within Georgia, both political camps see the battle in existential terms. It is difficult to imagine either backing down. The protesters, bolstered by huge numbers of young people, have energy and will eventually wear out police officers, says Vano Abramishvili, an analyst. “They are in a zugzwang,” he said, using a chess term for a position in which every move is a losing one. “There is no soft way out of this any more.” ■

To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.