Constitutional lawyer and scholar. Commentator on matters constitutional. Eurasia, Russia, CEE, Illiberal and Authoritarian regimes.
May 24, 2024 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
🧵 As expected, considering its overall trajectory, the Ivanishvili regime responded to the first package of the US sanctions with more escalation and insult. The regime remains undeterred, and it will undoubtedly override the presidential veto, /1
enacting the Russian foreign agents' law.
With the US Congress adopting Georgia sanctions legislation and the EU implementing its first response in the form of sanctions, the Ivanishvili regime's complete and irreversible estrangement from the West is imminent. /2
May 21, 2024 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Long 🧵
Venice Commission's opinion on Georgia's Foreign Agents' Bill and its domestic and European constitutional implications for Georgia.
The opinion is a comprehensive rebuttal of the bill and all thinly veiled abusive justifications asserted by the GE regime. /1
Everyone interested in a detailed, article-by-article takedown of the bill will find it in the opinion. However, the opinion's damning conclusions also entail sweeping implications of this bill's adoption for Georgia's constitutional and political system /2
May 1, 2024 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
🧵 There are too many armchair experts, who do not know a thing about Georgia but are arrogant and condescending enough to lecture us that Ivanishvili regime has nothing to do with Russia. Would you give us a break from your nonsense ? /1
Do you know a thing about Georgian politics? Its constitutional system and political regime? And their interplay? Have you studied Ivanishvili regime, his playbook, the trajectory of state capture and social cooptation? /2
Apr 29, 2024 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
🧵Bidzina Ivanishvili has delivered comprehensive anti-western political manifesto. His regime now clearly identifies the West as an external enemy and GE civil society as enemy within, whom he promises to conclusively repress after 2024 elections. /1
Nothing unexpected. His regime has been traveling this path from the start. Only those who were blinded by either wishful thinking or complicity could not see. And here we come. Ivanishvili’s Yanukovich moment arrived at last and he made the turn. /2
Apr 5, 2024 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
🧵 Apart from being the regime survival tool #Ivanishvili ‘s #illiberal pivot forms part of #Russia ‘s renewed push on all fronts.
Ivanishvili is RU instrument and the survival of his regime is also instrumental to RU imperialist objectives. 1/
Compared to RU s other client leaders, Ivanishvili’s autonomy and room for maneuver is extremely curtailed. True, he is also externally constrained by actors other than RU, the west included. However, these external constraints are asymmetric. 2/
