The ruling party Georgian Dream is attempting to maintain financial and diplomatic support from the West while simultaneously pursuing authoritarian policies and fostering ties with Russia, Nika Simonishvili, a lawyer and former chair of Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association claimed on Friday.
In his comments, Simonishvili accused the ruling party of leading both itself and the country toward a political and economic crisis. According to him, the government’s actions “lack legal justification and are primarily driven by foreign policy considerations.”
“The Georgian Dream has crossed all sorts of limits, and when I try to explain all this legally, I get a little embarrassed because none of their decisions has a legal explanation,” Simonishvili said. “Any of their actions is a response to a foreign policy decision.”
He emphasized that the ruling party’s contradictory approach – seeking financial assistance from Western institutions while resisting democratic reforms and maintaining close ties with Moscow – was unsustainable.
“These two cannot go together,” he said. “The West tells them that support will come if they carry out democratic reforms, but instead of complying, they try to impose their own terms.”
Simonishvili also referenced a recent decision by the US Senate, which he interpreted as a “strong signal” that Western relations could not be dictated by Tbilisi alone.
“The Senate’s decision yesterday is that it is not so easy to sort out relations with me and it will not work out,” he noted. “Yes, Georgian Dream really wants to maintain ties with the West, but they want it on their own terms. This is not how relations work, and by doing so, they are not only leading the country to the abyss, but they will also throw themselves into it.”
