Georgia

Georgian lawmakers have approved a bill on election reforms following a foreign-brokered deal to change a system that opposition parties insisted unfairly favored the ruling party heading into elections this autumn.

The U.S. and European Union ambassadors have called on Georgia's ruling and opposition parties to uphold and implement a foreign-brokered deal on election reforms after more than two months of failing to move forward. In a statement, the facilitators of the deal said it was intended to "depolarize" Georgia's political system and "create a better environment" for October parliamentary elections following the failure of promised constitutional to move to fully proportional parliamentary elections in 2020.

The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi said on April 17 it was "deeply troubled" by reports that Russian-led “security actors” have resumed “borderization” activities along the administrative boundary line of the Georgian-breakaway region of South Ossetia.

European parliamentarians on Tuesday (10 March) hailed the political agreement between Georgia’s ruling and opposition parties that promises to resolve the electoral reform conflict that has resulted in a series of protests across the country.

Georgia’s foreign ministry announced on Thursday (20 February) that a massive cyber-attack had taken place against its state institutions and media, and that investigations have shown that Russia was responsible for it.

Georgia's top court has slapped a prison term of over three years on one of the country's leading opposition figures, Gigi Ugulava. The ex-mayor of Tbilisi claims the ruling is the work of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.

In four days, Abkhazia, the breakaway region of Georgia, has seen government buildings smashed, protests to depose the de facto president come to fruition, a court decision that annulled previous elections published and new snap-elections called, a caretaker president appointed and opposition candidacy declared.

The EU's eastern neighbourhood is in flux. The collapse of the pro-reform government in Moldova and the stagnation of anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine was recently followed yet by another political crisis in Georgia.

Riot police forcibly removed protesters from around the Georgian parliament building on November 18 as the crisis deepened over a broken promise from the government to reform the country’s electoral system. Opposition parties have demanded snap elections under a new system that wouldn’t give a leg up to the ruling party, as the current one does.

A former U.S. diplomat says he has never seen Georgia so politically divided and warns that the country could retreat from the democratic progress it has made.