Georgia’s president is optimistic ahead of the fateful election

The French-born president calls the October 26 election existential.

– I am very optimistic that the Georgian people, 80 percent of whom have been supporters of Europe for the past three decades, will not suddenly change their position, says Zourabichvili (72).

The choice is between Europe and going back to an uncertain, Russian past, according to the president.

– There is a past where Georgia was not independent and independent, she says.

It is now over 30 years since Georgia became an independent republic when the Soviet Union fell in 1991.

Will ban opposition party

The governing party Georgian Dream has been in power since 2012. They were then a liberal and western party, but in the last 20 years have gone more and more in the opposite direction.

In the upcoming election, they seek a constitutional majority and want to ban the Western opposition parties.

The ruling oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili tops the Georgian Dream party list at the election. He founded the party and was the country’s prime minister from 2012 to 2013.

Current Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has to settle for second place.

The EU threatens sanctions

Georgia may face EU sanctions if they steer away from a democratic direction, says the EU’s ambassador to Georgia, Pawel Herczynski.

The EU is prepared to work with any democratically elected government in Georgia, but will not accept the country as a member if they become a “one-party state” without political opposition, says Herczynski.

This summer, the EU leaders warned that Georgia’s path to EU membership will be difficult as the situation is now.

Georgia became a candidate country for the EU at the end of last year, but this spring the government introduced the so-called agent legislation despite major protests from the population.

The law means that all media and non-governmental organizations that receive at least 20 percent of their funding from abroad must register as so-called foreign agents.

A similar law has been introduced in Russia.