Pro-Russian Party In Georgia Cuts Ties With European Body

The Georgian Dream party ceased its work in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the head of the Georgian delegation said after the Strasbourg-based legislative body overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Georgia to set a date for new parliamentary elections.

Tea Tsulukiani announced the move on January 29, saying that conditions of the resolution, which passed 114-13, were "unacceptable, unfair, and unfounded."

The resolution calls on Georgian authorities to set a date for new parliamentary elections before April, release all political prisoners, and review controversial laws. Its demands echo those of protesters who continue to hold pro-European rallies in Tbilisi and elsewhere in the country.

Protest in Georgia demanding new election and the release of unjustly detained.

Tsulukiani said the resolution’s demand for new elections “violates Georgia’s sovereignty and ignores the will of more than 1,120,000 voters who voted for Georgian Dream and is categorically unacceptable,” according to the Novosti-Gruzia.

“To accept this reservation on our part would be tantamount to betraying our electorate and, consequently, the overwhelming majority of our society,” Tsulukiani said. “Based on the above, we, members of the Georgian parliamentary delegation in Strasbourg, are ceasing our work in PACE from today.”

Georgian Dream was harshly criticized by members of the PACE during its plenary session on January 29. Among them was Latvian MP Zanda Kalniņa-Lukasevica, who said there had been a rollback of democracy in the country.

Georgian Dream last month pushed through its candidate, Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former soccer player and right-wing populist, as the country's new president despite widespread claims that the country’s parliamentary elections in October were not free and fair.

Georgian Dream claimed victory in the elections, which the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said were marred by instances of vote-buying, double-voting, physical violence, and intimidation.

Anti-government protests broke out in response to Georgian Dream’s claim and intensified in November after a government decision to delay negotiations on Georgia joining the European Union.

The authorities responded violently to the demonstrations, arresting hundreds of people and surveilling participants with Chinese-made cameras with facial-recognition capabilities.

The PACE’s resolution also calls for “an inclusive process involving all stakeholders and social actors” in Georgia to address “the shortcomings and problems revealed by the recent parliamentary elections.”

The process should strive for “an electoral environment conducive to the holding of genuinely democratic new parliamentary elections, which should be called in the coming months,” the resolution said.