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Draped in the red and white national flag, Gvanntsa Mikaela Gvantseladze, a student and popular figure on social media, sat on the stone steps of Georgia’s parliament surrounded by other youngsters determined to stop their country falling back into Russia’s orbit.
“We oppose everything that separates us from the EU,” she said late on Thursday, on the fourth day of mass protests in Tbilisi.
Thousands have taken to the streets of the Georgian capital to protest against the ruling party’s proposed law targeting “foreign influence”, which demonstrators say is modelled on Vladimir Putin’s repressive regime. Protesters clashed with police, who fired tear gas.
EU officials have warned passing the law will threaten Georgia’s membership aspirations, which are strongly supported by Georgian society.
“Every meeting in Brussels starts with a warning that if the law passes, the EU integration process is broken,” said Vano Chkhikvadze of the Open Society Georgia Foundation, a civil society group in Tbilisi, hours after returning from the Belgian capital.
There have been frequent anti-government protests in Tbilisi in recent years, but on this occasion, say analysts, the stakes are higher. The ruling Georgian Dream party, widely considered to be under the control of pro-Kremlin oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, needs the law to clamp down on its opponents and cement its hold on power in elections due in October.
Despite applying for EU membership in 2022, Georgian Dream has refused to join the bloc’s sanctions in response to Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine and last year allowed Russian airlines to resume flights to Georgia — another decision that prompted demonstrations. Russia maintains control of two separatist regions in Georgia, after invading the country in 2008.
“All the biggest protests in Georgia are not related to social issues, they are against drifting back into Moscow’s orbit,” said Eka Gigauri, head of Transparency International Georgia, another NGO. People are instantly mobilised when they “hear that we might go back under Russian influence”, she said.
The law would require NGOs and media that receive more than 20 per cent of their funding from abroad to register with the justice ministry or face fines. Its passage would lead to the “destruction of the NGO sector” and a large wave of young people leaving the country, warned Chkhikvadze.
In Russia, being classified as a foreign agent can get people fired or banned from running for office. Repeated non-compliance with the law can lead to prison sentences.
In Georgia, activists are determined to defy the law, which they consider anti-democratic. “I’d rather go to prison than label myself [a foreign agent]. That’s nonsense,” said Gigauri.
Critics of the bill say its authors are using Kremlin-style rhetoric in their attempt to justify it.
The driving force behind the bill and leader of Georgian Dream’s parliamentary group, Mamuka Mdinaradze, argues that NGOs and the media will “do their job” if the law is enacted, rather than “calling for the resignation of the government” or promoting “LGBT propaganda”.
Mdinaradze has also accused NGOs of trying to drag Georgia into the war in Ukraine.
This week, an attempt to pass the law in parliament ended in chaos as violence erupted on the parliament floor and Mdinaradze was punched in the face by an opposition lawmaker.
It was the second time Georgian Dream tried to get the law adopted, after withdrawing it last year following mass protests.
Many public figures have spoken out against it, including members of the national football team, whose recent qualification for the Euro 2024 championship was celebrated with mass enthusiasm.
Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili, a critic of the ruling party, has sided with the protesters. “The people always win!” she wrote on X this week.
Ivanishvili, the oligarch behind the ruling party, is Georgia’s richest man, having made money in the metals and banking sector after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His fortune is worth the equivalent of a third of the country’s gross domestic product. He served as prime minister in 2012-13 but now prefers to wield power behind the scenes.
In the 12 years since Georgian Dream has been in power, Ivanishvili’s influence on state institutions and the country’s foreign policy has steadily grown.
Among the conditions for the EU to start membership talks, Tbilisi must reduce the power of oligarchs and improve the protection of human rights and media freedom. There had been no progress on most of these measures in the six months since Georgia had been granted EU candidate status, said Chkhikvadze.
Analysts said the foreign influence law could be a way for the government to sabotage EU integration without blocking it outright, which would risk a popular uprising. Eighty-nine per cent of Georgians back European integration, according to a survey by the Washington-based International Republican Institute.
Gvantseladze, taking part in her 40th anti-government protest, said it was not society’s fault that “the government is proposing such initiatives”.
“But it is our fault that we have such a government. We have to change it.”
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