Georgia charges key opposition figures with seeking to topple government

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By Lucy Papachristou

TBILISI (Reuters) -Georgian prosecutors charged eight opposition figures, including jailed former President Mikheil Saakashvili, with plotting to topple the government and aiding foreign powers, a move sure to deepen concerns about democracy in the EU candidate nation.

One of the main opposition blocs, which the ruling Georgian Dream party is seeking to outlaw, described the prosecutors’ decision to launch criminal proceedings as “an attempt to establish a Russian-style dictatorship” and vowed resistance.

The prosecutors’ move comes two days after the European Union, in its annual enlargement report, accused Georgia of “serious democratic backsliding” and said the ex-Soviet republic was now considered a candidate country “in name only”.

In a statement, the prosecutors announced various charges against the eight people, including sabotage, aiding foreign interests hostile to Georgia and calling for the overthrow of the government.

They are seeking jail sentences of up to 15 years for the opposition figures, six of whom are already in jail on other charges.

The statement accused three of the politicians of providing information regarding Georgia’s economic and security ties with Russia to unspecified foreign governments “in order to create an artificial basis for imposing international sanctions”.

OPPOSITION SAYS NEW CHARGES ARE POLITICALLY MOTIVATED

Georgian Dream, in power since 2012, has in recent years built closer economic ties with Russia and has refused to impose sanctions on Moscow over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It has also suspended EU accession talks, though it insists it still wants Georgia, a nation of 3.7 million people, to join the bloc.

Last week, Georgian Dream said it would file a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court to ban three opposition groups on the grounds they pose “a real threat to the constitutional order”.

One of those, Strong Georgia, said Thursday’s move by the prosecutors was a politically motivated bid to crush dissent.

“The pro-Russian regime is today persecuting not only politicians but Georgia’s European path. Resistance will continue at all costs. We are determined to fight for peaceful political change via all legal and political means,” it said.

Strong Georgia also accused former prime minister and billionaire founder of the ruling party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, of seeking to impose “a Russian-style dictatorship” on Georgia.  Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, is widely viewed as the de facto leader of the country.

Russia denies Georgian opposition charges that it is meddling in the country’s affairs.

Once among the most democratic and pro-Western of the successor states to emerge from the Soviet Union, Georgia has turned increasingly authoritarian since the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

Six of the eight people charged on Thursday – Giorgi Vashadze, Nika Gvaramia, Nika Melia, Zurab Japaridze, Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze – were jailed this summer on charges of refusing to testify to a parliamentary commission investigating alleged wrongdoing under Saakashvili, who led Georgia from 2004 to 2012.

Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze were pardoned and released from jail in September.

Saakashvili has been imprisoned since 2021 for offences including abuse of power – which he rejects as politically motivated – and is expected to remain behind bars until 2034.

The eighth figure charged on Thursday, Elene Khoshtaria of the Coalition for Change, is also in jail facing charges of property damage after she defaced an election poster ahead of a municipal vote last month.

(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Gareth Jones)