Ruling party announces public rally in support of transparency bill

The ruling Georgian Dream party on Monday announced a public rally would be held outside the Parliament in Tbilisi next Monday “to say yes to transparency”, amid ongoing protests against the reintroduced bill on the transparency of foreign influence.

In the statement, the party claimed the domestic “radical” opposition has been “able to mislead only a small part of our fellow citizens” regarding the bill, which calls for the registration of non-commercial legal entities and media outlets in the country as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they derive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad.

“The bill on the transparency of foreign influence is still under discussion. However, it is already clear that unlike last year, this year the radical opposition has been able to mislead only a small part of our fellow citizens”, it said.

The Georgian public is already so politically mature that no amount of money can mislead it. According to sociological studies, today the approval rating of the Georgian Dream party exceeds 60 percent, while the only opposition party that manages to cross the [five percent] election threshold only having 12 percent approval rating”, the statement noted.

The party called on “patriotic fellow citizens” to “reject dark money funding of a revolution in Georgia, attacks on the Orthodox Church, political intervention with religious motives, LGBT propaganda, drug propaganda, discrediting of state institutions, radicalism and the so-called polarisation of the domestic political environment together”.

“We cannot allow a politically and morally bankrupt political minority to speculate and speak on behalf of citizens. We will show everyone where the great majority of the Georgian citizens stand, for whom the truth and true European values are precious, for whom our traditional national values - homeland, language and faith are precious”, it added.

Let us say ‘no’ to dark money and say ‘yes’ to transparency, true European path, independent and sovereign Georgia”, the statement concluded.

The first reading of the legislative piece was supported last week by 83 MPs in the 150-member lawmaking body, on the backdrop of public protests and criticism by some of the country’s foreign partners.