Quoting Esenhower, Speaker Accuses Opponents of “Disloyal Subversion”
On June 29, in a lengthy Twitter post, Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili slammed “a targeted campaign aimed at decoupling Georgian government from Georgian people.” He wrote the opponents of the Georgian Dream took a leaf from the Russian hybrid warfare and are using “de-legitimation of the government as a tool of political subversion.”
Claiming some of the opponents studied “at the KGB-run Soviet and Russian ‘educational’ institutions,” Speaker says it is “unfortunate” that some foreign partners and “foreign-funded Georgian NGOs” are using those opponent’s tactics against the government.
Speaker Papuashvili proceeded to say the “de-coupling” of the government from people was “unfair, harmful and immoral.”
The statement seems to respond to an increasingly vocal line of discourse, which argues that even though the Georgian government has failed to fulfill most of the EU’s 12 conditions substantively, the Georgian people’s overwhelming support to Europe should be considered by the European leaders when deciding on candidacy. A similar argument has been advanced by the President of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili.
This discourse became particularly influential in the West after thousands of Georgians rallied against the “foreign agents” law that would have curtailed the operation of the CSOs and media. During the March 14 debates in the EU Parliament, MEP Viola Von Cramon said: “People of Georgia deserve to be in the EU, even if their current government does not.”
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