The ruling party in Georgia, known as Georgian Dream, first came for civil society. Now, they’re coming for the pro-Western opposition parties, and ultimately democracy itself.
The apparent goal is the creation of a one-party regime, devoid of checks and balances, with only a subservient “opposition” to lend the government a veneer of pluralism. The United States and the European Union need to apply increased, targeted pressure on currently serving Georgian Dream officials to discourage them from banning the main opposition parties, imprisoning their leaders, and perhaps plunging the country further into internal conflict.
Georgia, with its firmly pro-Western and anti-Russian population in contrast to its pro-Russian and anti-Western government, was once a steadfast partner of the United States and the EU. No longer. It is now heading toward full dictator mode, and that’s in the interests of nobody but Russia, China, and Iran.
Demonizing the U.S., EU, Opening Door to Russia, China, Iran
Over the past several years, Georgian Dream has demonized the West, allowed bilateral agreements with the United States, EU, and NATO to lapse, opened the doors to thousands of Russian businesses, and recently concluded a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” with China. It even has cozied up to the regime in Tehran. Georgian Dream has reserved particularly toxic rhetoric for U.S. politicians and diplomats.
Leading Georgia down the wrong path is oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who briefly served as prime minister after making his fortune in Russia. All Georgian Dream officials answer to him, and, in recognition of his control over the government, the United States sanctioned him in 2024, at the end of the Biden administration. The European Union regrettably has failed to follow suit because of its inability to find the necessary consensus among its member states, with Hungary (under previous Prime Minister Viktor Orban) and Slovakia (under Prime Minister Robert Fico) blocking targeted sanctions. Perhaps that will change in the case of Hungary with Orban gone from power.
After the Georgian government failed to address charges of fraud and claimed a clear majority in the October 2024 elections, thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest. The demonstrations, amazingly, have continued every night since then, gaining further energy after the government announced in November 2024 that it was suspending accession talks with the EU until 2028.
Georgian Dream responded the way Russia’s Vladimir Putin did when faced with protests in 2012 – both ordered their subservient legislatures to provide the tools needed to target and prosecute civil society and the opposition.
The Georgian government is using repressive laws and threats of politically motivated criminal investigations to “devastate” watchdog groups and silence independent voices, according to Human Rights Watch. The most infamous law, the 2024 Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, was manifestly styled after Putin’s Foreign Agent law, which in 2012 virtually banned cooperation with international groups.
The tactic is working similarly in Georgia. Georgian civil society organizations, deeply dependent on Western support amid a dearth of indigenous funding, primarily because companies fear government retaliation if they financially support them, have been forced to close up shop or curtail their activities, and many activists have fled the country.
Independent TV channels have not been immune. The government has pressured businesses not to purchase advertisements and imposed specious fines against stations for carrying alleged anti-government content. This has caused one leading TV outlet to stop broadcasting and another to curtail programming and lay off staff. Respected journalist Vakho Sanaia is in the middle of a 14-day sentence in detention as the crackdown on the media ramps up.
As in Putin’s Russia, Georgian Dream’s direct repression and indirect pressure on watchdog groups and journalists have resulted in fewer and fewer voices to hold an increasingly authoritarian regime responsive and accountable to its people.
Targeting the Opposition
The courts, like the parliament, are already subservient, with researchers noting that “the Georgian judiciary at all levels yields to the executive.” With a pliant parliament and court system and having persecuted and marginalized civil society, the government has now set its sights even more directly on the political opposition. Last November, the government accused eight leaders of opposition parties of organizing “a multifaceted criminal scheme” to overthrow the government. They are accused of two main charges: first, that they provided Western governments with “false premises” to sanction Georgian Dream officials; and second, that they helped “radicalize” protestors and provided financial assistance to “violent groups.”
Attorneys for the leaders have called the charges, which carry up to 15 years of imprisonment, completely baseless. Three of the leaders are already in prison on separate charges, and the other five are free on bail. Court proceedings, ongoing since June, are on adjournment, and a verdict is expected this fall.
The regime has announced it will not stop at prosecuting individual opposition leaders. It has proposed legislation, now before the Constitutional Court, that would effectively eliminate all opposition parties that it claims are a “threat to the constitutional order.” It would also give the ruling party the power to ban any future parties, if they are deemed to be successor organizations to the banned parties.
To keep a façade of multiparty government, Georgian Dream has begun to create what the Russians call a “systemic opposition,” a party called People’s Power, made up of former Georgian Dream officials. One Georgian Dream deputy said People’s Power was set up to create a “healthy opposition” after the real opposition was banned. More and more, Georgian Dream is modeling itself after United Russia, the party in power in Russia, which has its own “foils” in “opposition,” and Ivanishvili is styling himself after Putin.
With decisions — one in the courts and one in the parliament — expected within weeks on jailing politicians and banning opposition parties, the time to act is now. It is in the interest of national security on both sides of the Atlantic to prevent Georgian Dream from fully establishing a one-party regime and opening the door to greater Russian and Chinese influence. As President John F. Kennedy suggested, “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Risk of Uprising — and Further Russian Intervention
With upward of two-thirds of Georgians in favor of joining the democratic West, Georgian Dream’s use of outright repression, with no outlet for expression or possibility for political change, could lead to an uprising. At that point, Russian intervention in response to any attempts against a Russia-friendly government would be likely. Moscow’s troops already occupy 20 percent of Georgian territory and could be in the capital of Tbilisi in under an hour.
In response, the U.S. administration should warn Moscow against any ideas it might have to intervene militarily. It also should impose hard-hitting sanctions on Georgian Dream officials — and urge the EU to do so against Ivanishvili — as the government continues to pursue repression. These would include asset freezes and visa bans targeting the Ivanishvili puppet prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, and the rest of his cabinet, as well as judges and prosecutors responsible for persecuting innocent individuals. Some judges have already been sanctioned, but many more should be included.
Fortunately, a vehicle for imposing such costs already exists: legislation currently before Congress would impose sweeping sanctions on officials who undermine democracy. The House has already passed it by a wide majority (349-82), and it would easily pass in the Senate, if the White House would signal its support, given the threats to stability that a pro-Chinese and Russian dictatorship in Georgia would represent to U.S. interests in the region.
The United States currently has no Senate-confirmed ambassador in Tbilisi, and nobody has even been nominated for the position. This shows a lack of interest in a country that has had very close ties with America over the years and has contributed to U.S.-led missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States and the EU, while having a full plate of other issues, need to pay closer attention to developments inside Georgia. They need to stand with the people of Georgia and against a ruling party that seeks to align with America’s enemies.
