It is clear to everyone that civil society in the country is a problem for the Georgian Dream and Ivanishvili, and they are trying in every way to take various steps to suppress civil society, - Nino Dolidze, the chairwoman of the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, stated on Palitranews.

As she noted, if Georgian legislation [the Georgian version of the American FARA] is implemented as conscientiously as in the USA, it will not affect Georgian non-governmental and media organizations at all, and if the government uses it against them, then it will not be the American FARA, but Ivanishvili’s FARA.

“In the US, this legislation is not used against independent non-governmental or media organizations that function in accordance with their statutory goals. We believe that, by its essence and content, this legislation in Georgia does not apply to us, neither to Fair Elections nor to other non-governmental or media organizations. Our statute envisages building democracy in Georgia and working on various issues in Georgia. Our goal is the democratic development of Georgia, therefore, we believe that this does not apply to us. The explanatory note to the Georgian Dream legislative proposal indicates that they are adopting this because other laws did not work. Their goal is clear - they want to use it against Georgian non-governmental, independent, impartial non-governmental organizations. Therefore, we simply say that if this legislation is implemented in good faith, as in the US, it does not apply to us at all and does not bother us. And if they use it against us, then it is no longer American FARA, and it is actually Ivanishvili’s FARA,” Dolidze said.

As for the accusations of the Georgian Dream that NGOs have a specific political mandate from external funders, according to her, Georgian NGOs work and strive only for the interests of Georgia and the citizens of Georgia.

“Obviously, we will continue this activity and will not limit ourselves and stop our work because legislation that does not apply to us. If they use a law that does not apply to us, it means that they actually deviate from the path that is provided for by this legislation. This means that they can use any legislation against civil organizations, be it FARA or something else. We are not afraid of this or any other legislation, because we carry out our activities in good faith,” Dolidze said.

She does not rule out the authorities initiating criminal prosecution against representatives of Georgian NGOs.

“If it does not apply us, but we will still be arrested because of it, then this will be the implementation of this legislation on political grounds. We should not rule this out not only with this legislation, but we already have about 50 illegal prisoners,” said Nino Dolidze.

In addition, she assessed the decision of Mikheil Kavelashvili, who is withdrawing the lawsuit filed by the fifth president, Salome Zurabishvili, with the Constitutional Court regarding the repeal of the law “On Transparency of Foreign Influence”. In her opinion, this is the party’s decision, not Mikheil Kavelashvili’s.

“I have no doubt that this is not Kavelashvili’s decision and that he is doing what the party dictated to him, we all know that very well. Kavelashvili suddenly signed so many laws that he did not even have time to read and analyze them. What this person is doing is clearly the goals of the Georgian Dream. We did not even hope that the “president” appointed by the Georgian Dream would pursue other types of interests. This legislation was Russian, which is still in effect,” Dolidze said.