Anti-Western ‘People Power’ Want to Curb Foreign CSO Funding
The anti-Western People Power responded to the U.S. Foreign Relations Committee’s recent hearing, which reviewed Georgia’s democratic backsliding and questioned whether the U.S. should reconsider its policy toward Georgia, by claiming that U.S. funding goes mainly to civil society organizations, represents a “threat” to Georgia’s sovereignty, and calling for CSO financing to be regulated by a “strict legal framework.”
The statement contended that the U.S. Senators “distinguished by their friendship with the United National Movement, threatened us with the termination of American funding.” “We remind the public that the largest part of the American funding is directed to NGOs which means that this money is not used for our country, but for their own agents,” they argued.
The movement’s statement also asserted that “a state that is not governed according to the principles of democracy, popular sovereignty, and separation of powers is not a full-fledged state” while lamenting that “these concepts have undergone a complete perversion,” and pointing to the U.S. and Europe as examples of that point.
Rehashing previous claims, the movement’s statement also underscored that Georgia was purposefully not granted EU candidate status, while Ukraine and Moldova were, to exercise a “coup of the government and establish an agentocracy in Georgia.”
People Power promised to present a proposal for regulating CSO financing “in accordance with the best Western practices in the near future.”
Georgian Dream Chairperson Responds
Georgian Dream chairperson Irakli Kobakhidze responded to the statement and People Power’s promise to present a proposal for regulating CSO financing, by stating, “We will see what it is, how it corresponds to Western practices, and we will discuss.”
He asserted however that “the death of the NGO sector is not our goal. We will see what the content of the initiative is, and we will judge based on that.”
Note: This article was updated on 18 November at 17:00 to reflect MP Kobakhidze’s response.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
