Georgia

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze says Georgia will suspend talks on European Union accession for four years and accused Brussels of “blackmail”. The announcement on Thursday came hours after the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution rejecting the results of Georgia’s October 26 parliamentary elections due to “significant irregularities”.

Despite claims its election victory is illegitimate, Georgian Dream party plans vote for new president on December 14, using rules it pushed through in 2017.

The de facto leader of Georgia's Moscow-backed breakaway Abkhazia region has signed his resignation amid ongoing protests by opposition supporters against a property deal with Russia.

The European Court of Human Rights has registered a complaint against Georgia's “foreign agent” law. According to the Young Lawyers' Association of Georgia, 16 media organizations, 120 civil society organizations, and four individuals made an appeal to the court regarding the law, which the Georgian parliament passed earlier this year.

Thousands of people rallied in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on November 11 to demand fresh elections amid allegations that Russia helped the ruling party, Georgian Dream, to rig the October 26 vote.

State prosecutors in the country of Georgia said Wednesday that they had initiated an investigation into Saturday’s parliamentary election amid claims that the vote was rigged. 

Georgia will hold parliamentary elections on 26 October 2024, for the first time under a fully proportional election system. The results of this vote will be highly consequential, potentially determining Georgia's EU and North-Atlantic integration trajectory for years to come. The election campaign environment has become increasingly tense and polarised. 

[…] Zurabishvili's statement came after she signed a decree announcing October 26, the last Saturday of October, as the day for the parliamentary polls, saying that voters will have to "choose between war and peace" in the election.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on July 31 that the U.S. government is pausing more than $95 million in assistance to the Georgian government. Blinken said the pause is due to "the Georgian government"s anti-democratic actions and false statements" that are "incompatible with membership norms in the EU and NATO." 

Russia’s foreign spy agency accused the United States on Tuesday (9 July) of plotting “regime change” in Georgia after the South Caucasus country holds a parliamentary election on 26 October, a claim Washington called “completely false.”