The Anti-Corruption Bureau’s decision to qualify two CSOs engaged in get-out-the-vote campaigns as “political actors” and impose on them rules and restrictions foreseen by law related to political parties has been met with backlash from wider civil society and the opposition, who say the Bureau has overstepped its mandate and is serving as an instrument in the hands of the ruling party to stifle dissent.
“Instead of the rapid activation of Russian law, the mechanism of the [Anti-Corruption] Bureau has been activated to restrict the activities of organizations and freedom of expression,” Nona Kurdovanidze, the head of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), wrote on Facebook.
“The Anti-Corruption Bureau’s decision is outside the scope of the law,” she asserted, noting that the Bureau is mandated to monitor political parties and their financial statements, but not the CSOs as they do not have such “declared electoral objectives” as defined by law, i.e., don’t aim to come to power through elections.
TI-Georgia, targeted by the Bureau, called the decision “legally unfounded.” The organization and its director “have indeed always been and remain committed to Georgia’s European future,” TI-Georgia said, but stressed: “We operate within the framework of the Georgian Constitution.”
The GYLA and an election watchdog, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), issued a joint statement calling the Bureau’s decision “illegal” and warning that it “sets a dangerous precedent for the law to be used in the future to disproportionately restrict freedom of speech and expression.”
“Today we are in a situation where we must really choose on which side Georgia will stand, and I am sure that Georgia will stand on the side of civilized countries,” said Nana Makharadze, co-founder of the public movement Vote for Europe, which unites CSOs working to mobilize pro-Western voters for the upcoming elections. The platform does not endorse any particular political party. “Georgia chooses Europe, the European future, and that is how it will be,” she added.
Background
On September 24, Razhden Kuprashvili, the Head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, a state body, qualified two organizations—Transparency International-Georgia and Vote for Europe—and their leaders as “political actors with declared electoral objectives,” which is the legal status of all political parties under the respective Georgian law. Kuprashvili argued that the two organizations are “actively involved in the pre-election campaign aimed at supporting concrete political parties as well as calling for refraining from supporting concrete political parties” and ordered them, as well as their leaders, to disclose their financial statements within five days or face fines.
The government has been targeting civil society through the “Law on Transparency of Foreign Funding,” also known as the Foreign Agents Law, and a campaign to menace and discredit them as agents of foreign influence. The government aims to overthrow the government and drag the country into war. The Anti-Corruption Bureau is under direct government control; its head is appointed by the Prime Minister, and the Bureau lacks the authority to investigate high-level corruption. The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s legal authority in constitutional law, concluded that the legal and institutional setup “does not provide for a sufficient degree of independence” of the Bureau.
Opposition reacts and GD Retorts
The opposition representatives also criticized the Bureau’s decision. “In fact, the Anti-Corruption Bureau was created not to carry out financial monitoring of political funds of all political parties equally, but to be an instrument in the hands of the Georgian Dream,” said Natia Mezvrishvili, deputy leader of Gakharia’s For Georgia.
“The Bureau goes after the representatives of the opposition and civil society organizations. There are actually questions about the independence of [its head] Razhden Kuprashvili,” said Ana Dolidze, leader of the For People party and one of the leaders of the Strong Georgia platform.
Meanwhile, the ruling party officials came out in defense of the Bureau. “We have said many times that these people [leaders of TI-Georgia and Vote for Europe] are directly involved in the pre-election campaign and are doing everything in favor of the [opposition] political parties and against the Georgian Dream, and most importantly, against the Georgian people,” GD MP Archil Gorduladze said, adding that these organizations “will do everything to somehow run away from transparency and not submit the declaration.”
Another GD MP Rati Ionatamishvili, Chair of the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee, called the targeted entities “political NGOs” and claimed “they are only interested in the political, even radical, agenda.” He added: “They are in no way different from the so-called politicians, the representatives of the radical opposition, and our society knows very well that this is the whole organism.”
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