Protesters gathered across Georgia on Saturday night in a third straight night of demonstrations against the government\u2019s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union. <\/p>\n
More than 100 demonstrators were arrested as crowds clashed with police Friday night, the country\u2019s Interior Ministry said. The Associated Press saw protesters in Tbilisi being chased and beaten by police as demonstrators rallied in front of the country\u2019s parliament building. <\/p>\n
On the same night, police also used heavy force against members of the media and deployed water cannons to push protesters back along the capital\u2019s central boulevard, Rustaveli Avenue. <\/p>\n
The ruling Georgian Dream party\u2019s disputed victory in the country\u2019s Oct. 26 parliamentary election, which was widely seen as a referendum on Georgia\u2019s aspirations to join the European Union, has sparked major demonstrations and led to an opposition boycott of the parliament. <\/p>\n
The opposition has said that the vote was rigged with the help of Russia, Georgia\u2019s former imperial master, with Moscow hoping to keep Tbilisi in its orbit. <\/p>\n
Speaking to the AP on Saturday, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said that Georgia was becoming a \u201cquasi-Russian\u201d state and that Georgian Dream controlled the country\u2019s major institutions. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen happening in the country \u2014 which is a country where we do not have any longer independent institutions, not the courts, not the Central Bank, and not, of course, the parliament,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have been moving more and more rapidly into a quasi-Russian model.\u201d <\/p>\n
Zourabichvili also rejected statements made by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, who characterized the protests as \u201cviolent demonstrations.\u201d In a statement on Saturday, he said Tbilisi remained committed to European integration. However, he said that unspecified \u201cforeign entities\u201d wished to see the \u201cUkrainization\u201d of Georgia with a \u201cMaidan-style scenario\u201d \u2013 a reference to Ukraine\u2019s 2014 Maidan revolution. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not demanding a revolution. We are asking for new elections, but in conditions that will ensure that the will of the people will not be misrepresented or stolen again,\u201d Zourabichvili said. \u201cGeorgia has been always resisting Russian influence and will not accept having its vote stolen and its destiny stolen.\u201d <\/p>\n
The government\u2019s announcement that it was suspending negotiations to join the EU came hours after the European Parliament adopted a resolution that condemned last month\u2019s vote as neither free nor fair. It said the election represented another manifestation of Georgia\u2019s continued democratic backsliding \u201cfor which the ruling Georgian Dream party is fully responsible.\u201d <\/p>\n
European election observers said October\u2019s vote took place in a divisive atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence. <\/p>\n
The EU granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 on condition that it meet the bloc\u2019s recommendations, but put its accession on hold and cut financial support earlier this year after the passage of a \u201cforeign influence\u201d law widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms. <\/p>\n
EU lawmakers urged a rerun of the parliamentary vote within a year under thorough international supervision and by an independent election administration. They also called on the EU to impose sanctions and limit formal contacts with the Georgian government. <\/p>\n
The Georgian prime minister fired back, denouncing what he described as a \u201ccascade of insults\u201d from the EU politicians and declaring that \u201cthe ill-wishers of our country have turned the European Parliament into a blunt weapon of blackmail against Georgia, which is a great disgrace for the European Union.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kobakhidze also said Georgia would reject any budgetary grants from the EU until the end of 2028. <\/p>\n
Critics have accused Georgian Dream \u2013 established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia \u2013 of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Protesters gathered across Georgia on Saturday night in a third straight night of demonstrations against the government\u2019s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union. More than 100 demonstrators were arrested as crowds clashed with police Friday night, the country\u2019s Interior Ministry said. The Associated Press saw protesters in Tbilisi being chased and beaten […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}