By Felix Light
TBILISI (Reuters) -The speaker of Georgia’s parliament said on Tuesday that the ruling Georgian Dream party is filing a lawsuit with the constitutional court to declare the three largest opposition parties illegal.
Speaking at a briefing, Shalva Papuashvili said that the suit requests that the court ban the Coalition for Change, former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement, and the Strong Georgia bloc, all of which hold strongly pro-Western views.
Georgia’s Interpress news agency quoted him as all three parties pose “a real threat to the constitutional order”.
Once among the most democratic and pro-Western of the successor states to rise from the Soviet Union’s ashes, Georgia has become rapidly more authoritarian since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, whilst also deepening economic ties with neighbouring Russia.
Georgian Dream has torn up the country’s once warm relations with the European Union, freezing talks on Georgia’s accession to the bloc, and accusing Brussels of plotting revolution in Tbilisi.
The EU has denied the accusations, and Georgian Dream says it still wants to join the bloc, but only if it can preserve peace with Russia and what it calls Georgia’s traditional Orthodox Christian values.
Several senior opposition figures are in jail, while police have ramped up arrests of protesters attending regular anti-government demonstrations that have continued for over a year.
Earlier this year, parliament passed a law making it easier to ban political parties.
Georgian Dream figures, including Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire ex-prime minister widely seen as the country’s de facto ruler, had repeatedly promised to ban the opposition parties for what they say are links to jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.
The party’s lawsuit is based on the findings of a parliamentary commission investigation alleged wrongdoing under Saakashvili, which opposition figures described as propaganda.
Saakashvili, who governed Georgia as a pro-Western reformer from 2003 to 2012, is deeply divisive among Georgians, many of whom accuse him of being erratic, authoritarian, and the author of a disastrous 2008 war with Russia.
He is currently serving a prison term for offences including abuse of power, and is expected to be in jail until 2034.
(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Hugh Lawson/Guy Faulconbridge)
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