On Thursday, the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Salva Papuasvili, signed the law that comprehensively restricts LGBTQ+ rights in the country, following the Russian model, and which President Salome Zurabishvili had previously refused to sign. On social media, the Speaker of the Parliament stated that the legislation does not reflect changing ideologies, but is based on common sense, historical experience and centuries-old Christian, Georgian and European values.
The law introduced by the ruling Grúz Álom party and passed last month prohibits same-sex couples from marrying, makes it impossible for them to adopt children, limits gender confirmation treatments and prohibits changing gender in official documents. It outlaws Pride events, prohibits the support of LGBTQ people in the media, and subjects them to censorship in films and literature.
However, its final approval is only one of the campaign episodes of the October 26 parliamentary election, in which
according to observers, it will be decided whether Georgia, which was once the most pro-Western among the post-Soviet states, will permanently turn to Russia or strengthen its EU integration aspirations.
According to general opinion, with this law, the ruling party wanted to rally the conservative forces behind it in a country where the Orthodox Church has great influence. And some of the opposition figures were careful to condemn the trampling of LGBTQ rights, fearing that it would lose voters.
Salome Zurabishvili has been opposed to the pro-Russian ruling party for a long time, and at the beginning of the year she vetoed the law on “foreign influence”, but the Georgian Dream-dominated parliament overruled her decision even then. The legislation, which copied the Putin regime’s repressive tools and required media and civic groups with more than 20 percent foreign funding to register as organizations that “follow the interests of a foreign power,” sparked weeks of protests across the country and was widely criticized for cracking down on democratic freedoms. The opposition accused the ruling party of colluding with Moscow, thus missing the chance for Georgia to join the European Union.
Georgian parliament speaker signs Russian-style anti-LGBTQ law after head of state rejects it
The South Caucasus country of 3.7 million applied for admission to the EU (together with Ukraine and Moldova) in March 2022, a few days after the start of the comprehensive Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in December 2023 it received candidate status. In July of this year, however, the Brussels committee suspended the accession process in response to the approval of the Foreign Agents Act and stopped part of the EU subsidies intended for Tbilisi. The United States simultaneously imposed sanctions on dozens of Georgian officials.
The election at the end of October may be of historical significance for Georgia, and as the voting day approaches, the ruling party makes increasingly unrealistic promises. The Georgian Dream led by the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, which has been in power for 12 years, promises both to join the union and, if it wins, to outlaw the United National Movement (UNM) of ex-president Miheil Saakashvili, who was imprisoned during his administration, and all its “satellite and successor parties”. that is, the entire opposition in favor of continuing EU integration. However, according to Alexander Atasuntsev, an analyst at the Carnegie Foundation, the ruling party is preparing the way for the revolution with this threat, leaving the demonstrations as a field of political struggle for the fragmented opposition.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, who has been visiting the country for weeks, attacks the former Georgian authorities in his speeches and threatens retaliation. He relentlessly criticizes the UNM for “provoking” Georgia’s war with Russia in August 2008 (which resulted in a catastrophic defeat) and for dragging the country into the conflict in Ukraine.
He calls the opposition “the party of global war” and “fascists”, promising a “Nuremberg trial” against them. All this is accompanied by vague promises that the separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia will be returned to Georgia, although this, he says, will require amending the constitution.
He added that after the elections “we will dedicate ourselves to apologizing to South Ossetia” for the 2008 war.
His statement caused general outrage in Georgia. On the other hand, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised the leadership in Tbilisi last Sunday at the UN General Assembly for “sincerely appreciating the past. He announced that Russia is “ready to help” in the reconciliation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and to negotiate the withdrawal of the Russian units stationed there since 2008. “All this gives the impression that the Georgian Dream already has some kind of agreement with Russia, which recognizes the two breakaway regions as independent states. However, this is hardly more than an election bluff,” writes Alexander Atasuntsev.
The situation is tense, but not impossible for the opposition. Edison Research Poll September 10-22. According to a survey conducted between 2010 and 2016, the support of Grúz Álom stood at 32 percent, while 20 percent of those polled would have voted for the UNM, which leads the opposition, and more than 22 percent for two other opposition forces. 64 percent thought that the country was moving in the wrong direction, and 71 percent said that another party should be given a chance to govern in the elections.
Salome Zurabishvili, who visited Brussels on Thursday, explained in an interview with Euronews that the Georgian opposition has gathered in recent months into a bloc that wants to win the elections with a pro-European mandate and opposes the pro-Russian drift of the current government. “I expect that the people of Georgia will remain loyal to what they have wanted since our independence,” said the former French diplomat, and he hopes that “this will prompt Brussels to restart its membership negotiations with Tbilisi.
Source: nepszava.hu
