US and EU Lawmakers and Former Policymakers Call for Sanctions Against 'Illegitimate Regime', Demand New Elections
By Liza Mchedlidze
Thursday, January 9, 2025
US and EU legislators and former policymakers have issued a joint statement urging democratic nations to take a unified stance against the Georgian Dream led by Bidzina Ivanishvili. The statement calls Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream "illegitimate regime" and criticises it for ignoring opposition concerns, suppressing protests, and undermining Georgian democracy, as well as ignoring international monitors. The statement calls for sanctions and the suspension of high-level meetings until they agree to conducting new, monitored elections.
"We, transatlantic legislators and former senior policymakers from across the political spectrum, call on all free and democratic governments to demand free and fair elections in Georgia and reject the illegitimate Ivanishvili regime. We call for a unified policy that no senior meetings should take place between free and democratic governments and this illegitimate regime until it agrees to new, properly monitored and conducted elections. Additionally, we call for unified sanctions on Ivanishvili's regime and Georgian Dream officials and propagandists undermining Georgian democracy and sovereignty.
Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream party has chosen to ignore the legitimate concerns of the opposition and international monitors about the recent elections, seated a one-party legislature, and unilaterally elected a new president. They have responded with brutality to nightly protests of hundreds of thousands of protestors. The Georgian people demand free and fair elections and we must stand with them," reads the statement, signed by 43 individuals: US Congress members, European and national legislators, and former senior policymakers, including Joe Wilson, Chairman of the US Helsinki Commission; Michael Roth, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German Bundestag; Viola von Cramon, former Member of the German Bundestag; Gabrielius Landsbergis, former Foreign Minister of Lithuania; and Ben Hodges, retired Lieutenant General and former Commander of US Army Europe.
