Become a dictator, but stay in Europe

The final adoption of the law on “foreign agents” in Georgia turned out to be a fundamental issue for the West. Under the threat - visas, investments, EU membership. And in October - elections

The authorities of Georgia passed the point of no return in relations with the West. The parliamentary majority of the ruling party “Georgian Dream” (GM) overcame the Veto President Salome Zurabishvili to the law “On the Transparency of Foreign Infant” by an absolute majority vote: 84 votes “For” with the necessary minimum of 76 votes.

According to the regulations, after overcoming the veto of the head of state, the speaker of the legislative body Shalva Papuashvili must sign the law within five days. And two months later, according to the notorious law, which has already entered into force, all legal entities financed from the border by more than 20%are obliged to register in the special register of the Ministry of Justice and no later than January 2025 submit a detailed report on the received funds and most importantly-their targeted use, that is, for what these Western funds were spent.

The authorities claim that this law was needed in order to “open the veil” over the malicious conspiracy of the “world backstage” on the financing of “propaganda against the Orthodox Church” and the “popularization of LGBT*-image of life”, and ultimately the organization of the coup d'etat in the interests of the “global party of war”, trying to “open a second front in Georgia against Russia”.

Masons and their "Global Party of War"

During the second hearing to the Law on Ino -Agents, they deftly stuffed the provision that although he does not oblige individuals to register, any person can be called “to the carpet” of the Ministry of Justice, or other “competent authorities” to testify regarding legal entities if the “individual” had or has at least the slightest attitude towards them.

160 non -governmental organizations and media platforms have already stated that they would not register in the Ministry of Justice, because they do not want to "wear a shameful stigma of a foreign agent." True, in the law itself, this “Stigma” is formulated somewhat differently: “A person conducting the interests of foreign power.”

After refusing to register in the registry, financial sanctions, fines will follow, and in case of non -payment of a fine, the arrest of accounts, that is, in fact, the closure of the organization, no matter how much the authorities say that the supposedly law “On the Transparency of Foreign Infant” does not imply restriction of the work of NGOs and the media.

However, all this is in the future. Even in the recent. Now the main thing is that the authorities still managed to physically sell the notorious law, despite the fierce resistance of civil society, political activists and especially youth, who was really heroic, despite all repressions, beating and arrests.

To block the gate into the parliament building so that the deputies from GM could not get there and vote four times for the “Russian law”, the protesters could not. Each time special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are with great difficulty, but still managed to “clean” at least one of four passages to parliament from thousands of picketers.

At the sight of how hard, even sometimes cruelly, but in an organized special forces acted, the conclusion suggests itself that all the last year after the turbulent events of March 2023, when the Party of Power had to withdraw this very law after fierce street battles around the parliament, the Ministry of Internal Affairs only studied, which trained the “robocopes”, as they were called in Georgia, learning them. new sophisticated techniques, equipped with more “high -quality” “varieties” of pepper and tear gases.

In parallel, all the last weeks of activists are dragged on the courts, they are fined for the “police resistance”, and criminal cases have been initiated against some under articles involving imprisonment up to seven years.

Nevertheless, all these days in Tbilisi passed the most numerous rallies and demonstrations in the entire recent history. However, the “speakers” of GM, first of all, Prime Minister Irakli Kobahidze and the chairman of the parliament Shalva Papuashvili, argued that the majority of the population supported the ruling party and the law itself, since it was tired of the “opacity” of external influence and suddenly drew the “transparency” of the civil sector.

In fact, it is unlikely that the mentioned “majority” understands the specifics of the work of non -governmental organizations and is generally interested in their activities. Although the government “speakers” are right that the population of Georgia really really consists of “loyalists”, tired of the “great shocks” of recent history and sincerely craving only one thing - peace and tranquility, even if these “values” are fundamentally contradicting the logic of the historical process. Including the aspirations of the same “majority” on integration into peaceful, happy, calm and comfortable Europe: in all surveys, 80% of Georgian citizens support the entry into the EU and NATO.

This foreign policy priority (by the way, on the initiative of the party that is now in Georgia) is even registered in the Constitution! In Art. 78 of the Basic Law in black and white says: “All branches of the authorities are required to do everything for integration into Euro -Atlantic structures.”

And GM does not at all abandon the constitutional priority: the same leaders of the “party of power” every day will verify about the desire to see Georgia in the EU, but only ... with the “unbearable” condition that only they should stand at the head of the “European Georgia”. That is, “we, of course, are for the EU, the USA and NATO, but ... only if they agree that GM be eternal power” - this is the non -cojected program of the party of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.

And when the West with such a “program” does not agree and tries to counteract it, insisting on the change in power as the main institute and the “supporting structure” of any democracy, the authorities of the Caucasian country begin to be angry. The billionaire Ivanishvili and his team members in the last few weeks have already said so much about the “Global Party of War” and the “Masonic conspiracy” against Georgia, which would have been enough for several “messages-boxes” of their Russian and Belarusian colleagues.

"There is no reception against scrap"

It is well known that the history of the nation most often creates its passionate minority, and not the philistine majority. But as the latest events in Georgia showed, just an experiencing turning point in history, the mentioned “passionate minority” can create history contrary to the fear of the “philistine majority” of any changes only if the authorities based on the “loyalists” will not be able to create a fairly effective and effective suppression apparatus.

However, this is not always enough. The regime needs an ideology-“a set of semantic bonds”, consolidating the “deep state”, with a mass of cautious inhabitants, which for moral comfort is necessary “self-justification” in the form of a “super-leaf”, legitimizing the desire to maintain the status quo and the existing state of things.

In the case of Georgia, such a cross was ... "The struggle against LGBT."

In addition to the “Russian law” on “foreign agents”, the ruling party almost simultaneously initiated another “Russian law”: constitutional amendments “On the prohibition of propaganda of LGBT among minors”.

In the midst of many thousands of demonstrations of “color pro -European youth”, on May 17, when the day of the struggle against homophobia and transfoby is celebrated around the world, the authorities solemnly celebrated the day of the Holy of Holy of Holy of Family, and announced this day by a non -working day.

Hundreds of thousands of people came to the Kashuetsky Church on Rustaveli Avenue near the parliament building, that is, the very place where pro -European manifestations were arranged. And although there were many supporters of the opposition and opponents of the Law “On Ino-Agents” among the participants in the grandiose church procession from Kashuuti to the Kashuuti to the Church of the Holy Trinity, this event with its main “messenger” “for the holiness of the family” was nevertheless aimed at “fastening” of the masses and power around the inadmissibility of “elaborate foreign influence”, and therefore in support of the notorious law.

It turned out that everyone who is against the law was all gays.

The active participant in the procession was the organization of religious fanatics from the Union of Orthodox parents, traditionally fighting with minorities under more than once sounding and at least registered on the fences of the slogan “a man in Georgia will never be called a wife!”.

And what kind of “technique” can you fight against this semantic “scrap” in a traditionally homophobic Georgian society?!

Here, the calculation of the authorities and their political strategists still turned out to be quite accurate and productive, demonstrating the similarity of the “technology” used in Moscow and Tbilisi.

Frenchman, Frenchwoman and former prosecutor general of California

On October 26, parliamentary elections will be held in Georgia. They have already been called a "referendum to preserve the European path of development of the country." Traditionally irritated Georgian opposition is still unsuccessfully trying to unite, and it is quite clear that both its consolidation and the outcome of the elections largely depend on the actions of the West after the entry into force of the law on “foreign agents”.

Western partners threaten the Georgian authorities with rigid sanctions. Including - a ban on traveling deputies and members of their families to the coveted Europe and the USA,

The cancellation of the visa regime for Georgian citizens with the states of the Schengen agreement and the termination of any negotiations on the full membership of Georgia in the European Union.

The French President Emmanuel Macron, Chancellor of Germany Olaf Sholz, European Union President Charles Michel and the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Lyain made a warning. However, the statement of the US Vice President, the former Prosecutor General of California Kamaly Harris, warned the most significant and menacingly, warning that the law adopted "will undermine the relationship between the United States and Georgia."

Madame Harris significantly mentioned the constant support of Washington to the territorial integrity of Georgia. The deputy from the Opposition Party “For Georgia” Mikhail Daashvili saw in this passage the hidden threat of US refusal from the policy of non -recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moreover, Abkhazia did not adopt a similar law on “foreign agents”, despite the obvious pressure of Moscow and its protege, the former Foreign Minister of Abkhazia Inal Ardzinba, who recently resigned precisely because of disagreements with the highest leadership of Abkhazia on this occasion.

Undoubtedly, Western sanctions will certainly follow. At first, symbolic, although “iconic”, such as a refusal to visas a couple of deputies, some second -level officials and police chiefs. But if the Georgian authorities follow in the footsteps of the Russian Federation and begin to gradually tighten the legislation against “foreign agents”, accept repressive laws “arising” from it (as happened in Russia after 2012), will actually arrest the accounts of NGOs and media platforms under the pretext of their refusal to register, then Western sanctions will also gradually tighten.

Moreover, not only personal and targeted (the arrest of the accounts of numerous Georgian multimillionaires in Western banks), but also against the country itself: at the first stage they will refuse to launch negotiations on full -fledged membership in the EU (this, in fact, has already been decided), in the second will be canceled the visa -free regime for Georgian citizens, that is, the only real achievement of Georgia over the years of independence. Finally, financial injections into the Georgian economy will be suspended.

The reason for such a harsh Western attitude to the “damned law”, as many in Georgia call it, is read from the statements of the same Kamaly Harris, as well as President Michel and other Western leaders: since Georgia was considered a “dumb -sized” EU and the USA and the “showcase” of the advisability of the pro -Western development path in the post -Soviet space, then

The Law on “Ino -Agents” is perceived in the Euro -Atlantic community not just as the collapse of Georgian democracy (this is where it went, tolerant), but as discrediting the West, that is, not very significant, but still violating the global renome of the United States and the EU.

This moment is especially noticeable in the same appeal of Vice President Harris.

As a result, the “Georgian Question” (especially if you judge by the reaction of the mainstream Western media) acquired such a fundamental character that it is simply not possible to just let it go by chance and pretend that nothing is happening.

And as the Georgian authorities plan to get out of this situation at least with acceptable losses, it is completely incomprehensible.

It is also important to note that Kamala Harris addressed the letter to President Salome Zurabishvili, who vested the law. According to the Constitution of Georgia, it is only a symbolic figure and performs ceremonial functions. But it is thanks to his high legitimacy as a popularly chosen (in 2018) that the head of state Zurabishvili can “consolidate” the large and diverse “opposition cluster” in Georgia itself, as well as the Western reaction to the “distant” Caucasian country, which paradoxically is not so and far as it was presented to the history with the “transparency of the external influence ".

Moreover, Salome Zurabishvili is a career French diplomat. She was born and raised in Paris. Her parents are the descendants of the Georgian emigration of the first wave, which left Georgia after the Sovietization of the country in 1921. Its deep “anti -bribe” is really immanent, taking into account the historical telegram, which in February 1921, one “Kremlin imperialist” with the name and surname Sergo Ordzhonikidze sent to the Kremlin the second “Russian imperialist” Joseph Dzhugashvili: “Over Tbilisi, the red banner! Long live Soviet Georgia! ”

The main “visa” of President Zurabishvili in this struggle is another “Frenchman”, the founder of the ruling party “Georgian Dream”, billionaire Bidzin Ivanishvili. He received a French passport in 2010. And in 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron awarded the Georgian billionaire the Order of the Legion of Honor for a multi-million contribution to the struggle against the coronavirus epidemic in France and the restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The Champs Elysees, as you know, is not scattered by such orders.

Thus, the confrontation between the “two citizens of France” and the inevitable invasion of this struggle to the Ukrainian citizen Mikhail Saakashvili (since May 2022 in the VIP Palat of the Elite Tbilisan Clinic “Vivamedi” as nothing else illustrates all the grotesqueness of the situation, which was undergoing the situation, unconditionally confirming that the current situation. The true dream of Georgian society and even the whole Georgian people is really a dream of Europe! But the fuss around the “Russian law” is just a battle for the opportunity to always and invariably be in power in “European Georgia” without “malicious tricks” constantly careing for the replacement of the power of the “civil sector” and the opposition.

As the party Ivanishvili wants with the pathos name “Georgian Dream” - to remain in the power of “until 2036”.

George Pagawa, Tbilisi

* Recognized in the Russian Federation an extremist movement and is prohibited.