Georgian officials brace for further sanctions

The threat of further Western sanctions against Georgian officials over democratic backsliding in the country has led to reports of alarm within the ruling Georgian Dream party, weeks ahead of parliamentary elections.

On Wednesday, TV channel Formula reported  citing confidential sources that bank accounts abroad belonging to the children of Georgian Dream founder and billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili, had been limited.

TV station Mtavari Arkhi also reported on Wednesday that Ivanishvili had received an ‘emergency message’ from Brussels about ‘expected financial sanctions’ against Ivanishvili. They suggested based on a source that there was ‘complete chaos’ within Georgian Dream.

On 20 September, Voice of America ​​reported that the US had already developed a package of sanctions against Ivanishvili, and was considering imposing it in the near future.

On Monday, the mayor of Tbilisi and General Secretary of the Georgian Dream party, Kakha Kaladze, said he had withdrawn his own money from European banks last year.

Since Georgian Dream passed the foreign agent law in May, the US and EU have begun to sever ties with the government, including suspending aid, pulling out of joint military drills, and stating that Georgia’s EU application had been put on hold.

On 16 September, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the chief of the Interior Ministry’s Special Task Department, Zviad (Khareba) Kharazishvili, and his deputy Mileri Lagazauri over their role in suppressing anti-government protests.

Washington also imposed travel sanctions on 60 others, including senior government officials. 

A change of tone?

In their report on Wednesday, Mtavari Arkhi suggested the fear of sanction had resulted in a change of tone from the ruling party.

At a briefing on Wednesday Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said the Georgian government ‘must get along’ with everyone, including the ‘Global War Party’. He said this would happen following October’s parliamentary elections in Georgia and in the US, as well as the end of the war in Ukraine.

Kobakhidze previously said in May that there was ‘no alternative’ to fighting with the Global War Party, despite the fact that ‘it is connected with serious risks, including personal risks’.

The Global War Party is a Georgian Dream conspiracy theory which claims that a secret cabal controls the West and seeks to sow war globally.

The ruling party has in previous months expressed defiance over the possibility of sanctions being imposed on them.

In September the PM claimed that financial sanctions imposed on two high-ranking police officials were ‘aimed at the destruction of Georgian-American relations’. 

He added that during a meeting with US ambassador Robin Dunnigan, he had said that if ‘one more step is added to this’, the government would have to revise ‘certain positions’.

However, on Wednesday Vice-Speaker of Parliament, Nino Tsilosani, complained that potential and existing sanctions were ‘an injustice’.

Tsilosani told PalitraNews that the aim of sanctions was to influence the elections and change the government.

Despite the threat of sanctions, the ruling party has continued to push ahead with legislation condemned as anti-democratic by the opposition and local and international rights groups. On Thursday, the Speaker of the Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, signed the LGBT Propaganda Bill into law.