Giorgi Gakharia’s For Georgia party has said it would have voted for ‘parts’ of Georgian Dream’s queer propaganda law if the legislative package had been split up instead of being voted for as a whole.

On Wednesday, For Georgia issued the statement in response to claims by Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili that the party was opposed to the law.

In his statement, Papuashvili praised Girchi — New Political Centre for taking part in the draft law’s second hearing, and claimed that For Georgia dismissed one of their members, Shalva Kereselidze, for expressing support for the ruling party’s constitutional amendments also banning ‘LGBT propaganda’. He accused For Georgia of ‘censoring’ their own members.

Georgian Dream initially pitched its homophobic law as constitutional amendments, despite not having the numbers needed in parliament to make changes to the constitution.

They later announced that they would present the law as a legislative package consisting of one ‘main’ draft law and 18 other related laws.

For Georgia stated on Wednesday that they only intended to support parts of the package, but were ‘not allowed’ to support the specific bills due to Georgian Dream’s ‘procedural manipulations’.

‘Through procedural manipulations, [Georgian] Dream did not allow us to support specific bills related to the protection of children from propaganda in kindergartens and schools’, the party said.

‘Why didn’t we support other projects? Because it is very clear that these laws are needed by [Georgian Dream] to fraudulently win votes in the elections’.

On the same day, the opposition party clarified to Netgazeti that they were unable to support parts of the homophobic law because Georgian Dream voted on the package as a whole instead of voting on its draft laws separately.

They also said that they only intended to support parts of the package pertaining to ‘propaganda’ directed at children, including amendments to the law on general education and the law on early and preschool education.

For Georgia was founded in May 2021 by former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, who left Georgian Dream earlier that year due to disagreements with its leadership. 

Georgian Dream’s homophobic legislative package lays the foundation for a number of restrictions and changes including banning queer ‘propaganda’, gender affirmation treatment, and banning queer people from adopting children. 

According to IPN, the ruling party plans to adopt the homophobic legislative amendments in their third and final reading during the next plenary week between 17–20 September.