Tens of thousands of people again took to the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, on Wednesday evening. Their target: a bill perceived as an obstacle to the country’s European aspirations.
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Protesters gathered on the evening of Wednesday May 1 in front of the Parliament in Tbilisi to the sound of the Ode to Joy, before the police dispersed everyone with stun grenades and water cannons.
The day before, the police had already arrested around sixty people. The anger that has been expressed for two weeks now in this former Soviet republic of the Caucasus is aimed at a symbolic text which can tip the country to the wrong side of history because this law, which must still be voted on in third reading, requires that all NGO or media receiving more than 20% of its funding from abroad registers as“organization acting in the interests of a foreign power”. Exactly what the Kremlin did with its law on foreign agents, which allowed it to muzzle critical voices and civil society. Six months before the legislative elections in Georgia, it would also be very practical for stifling the opposition. Suffice it to say that, seen from Brussels, this kind of text is a bit of a stain.
Especially since the Georgians have already made their choice. They do not want Russia’s influence, even less since their small country of 4 million inhabitants obtained the status of candidate country for the European Union in December. For 20 years, Georgia has gradually detached itself from the Soviet bloc and looked to the West. The population refuses to put themselves in the shadow of Vladimir Putin as the populist party in power, the “Georgian dream” that some no longer hesitate to call “the Russian nightmare”.
This standoff strongly resembles what happened in Ukraine at the time of Maidan, in the winter of 2013 – 2014. In 2013, kyiv wanted to sign an association agreement with Brussels. The Kremlin then demanded that the president oppose it, which led to the Maidan rebellion and ultimately the fall of Viktor Yanukovych.
Among our colleagues from France 24, the Georgian president, Salomé Zourabichvili, declares that she is firmly opposed to this bill and is on the side of the demonstrators. But she called not to attack Parliament and rather to wait for the elections to demonstrate in the long term that “Georgia is not Russia.”
