Democracy has ended in Georgia as of yesterday.

A summary in a 🧵
civil.ge/archives/637992 Yesterday, Georgia's newly composed parliament, based on rigged elections, was inaugurated. By parliament itself.

Under the constitution the president has to call this session within 10 days after the CEC signed the final protocol of the election results (on 16 November last).

OSCE signals the election environment in Georgia was not fully free and fair, recognizes the many recent amendments of the election code were executed for political gain of the incumbents, Georgian Dream. Says the uneven distribution of financial resources of parties created an unequal playing field.

Over 8 dagen gaat Georgië naar de stembus voor een nieuw parlement.

Het worden cruciale verkiezingen voor het EU-kandidaatlid. De regerende Georgische Droom heeft zich ontmaskerd als illiberale partij die de democratie wil afbreken naar (Wit-)Russisch model.

Een 🧵. Voor Georgië staat de democratie en haar toekomst met en in de EU op het spel.

Het land is sinds december kandidaatlid van de EU, maar Georgische Droom wilde dit helemaal niet binnenhalen.

De bevolking wil juist maar wat graag bij de EU horen.

Ivanishvili (and through him the Kremlin) has won this one, for now.

Georgia's path to the EU has effectively become frozen.

Georgia only received candidate status last December, which triggered a new wave of legislation that runs counter to EU accession
bbc.com/news/articles/… To be precise, 🇬🇪 has to fulfill nine recommendations before the actual accession talks can start, so the process was already conditionally on hold one could argue.

However, the adoption of the foreign agent bill last month has widened the gap for accession to continue.