Georgia’s Parliament passed in the first reading on 25 November amendments to the country’s Electoral Code to end out-of-country voting (OCV). An estimated 1.5 million Georgian citizens live outside of the country, compared to 3.7 million in Georgia itself. Over 95,000 Georgians abroad registered and 34,574 voted in the most recent general elections at 60 voting stations in 42 countries. Media reported that long lines prevented many voters from participating. Civil society experts say the government is motivated by its unpopularity among the diaspora. Georgian Dream had received 53.9 per cent of the vote overall but 13.5 per cent abroad. Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said the move was needed because voters in the United States and European Union were ‘vulnerable to external interference’ and the results showed ‘how open and blatant foreign informational and political pressure on voters can be.’ The bill will now need to be passed in a second reading and signed by the President to become law.

Sources: Civil.ge, Caucasian Knot, Civil.ge

The Georgian Government has announced the Anti-Corruption Bureau will be abolished by 2 March 2026. All its functions are to be transferred to the State Audit Office. While the Bureau was created at the urging of the European Commission as part of conditions for Georgia’s European Union candidacy, it had in recent months been a key part of the crackdown on civil society by subjecting critical civil society organizations and media to punitive audits. Leading Georgian Dream officials have said the Bureau’s existence was ‘dictated from the outside’, meaning the European Union, and centralizing anti-corruption responsibilities under the State Audit Office would be more efficient.

Sources: Civil.ge, OC Media, Reuters

The Georgian Parliament adopted legislation that grants the Constitutional Court the authority to prohibit individuals associated with banned political parties from forming or joining political parties, standing as candidates in elections or holding any public office. Legislation passed in May 2025 already allows the Court to ban any political party it sees as aiming to ‘overthrow or change Georgia’s constitutional order by force, undermine the country’s independence, violate its territorial integrity, engage in war or violence propaganda, incite national, regional, religious, or social strife’. It can also ban parties that it sees as identical to a party already subject to such a ban. Officials from the ruling Georgian Dream Party have said the purpose of the legislation is to empower it to ban the country’s three major opposition parties, which it accuses, without evidence, of seeking to overthrow the state, and that it intends to file a lawsuit to begin the process in the immediate future. 

Sources: First Channel, Civil Georgia, OC Media, Parliament of Georgia 

The Georgian government froze seven leading civil society organizations’ (CSO) bank accounts on 27 August, as part of anti-corruption and tax inspections it has undertaken on nearly every high-profile CSO in the country since the country’s Foreign Agent Registration Act came into effect in June. The freezes are part of a case alleging the CSOs are engaged in ‘sabotage’ by allegedly purchasing protective materials for anti-government protesters and paying arrested protesters’ fines and legal fees. In statements, the affected CSOs denied the charges and said the protective materials in question were purchased for their own staff, as their mandate as human rights monitors required them to monitor protests. In March 2025, the Prosecutor General’s Office froze the bank accounts of other CSOs that had financially supported protesters, but has not yet provided any evidence to support the current charges.

Sources: Eurasianet, OC Media, International IDEA

The ruling Georgian Dream party escalated its efforts to ban and sideline opposition politics parties in May. Three opposition leaders were sentenced to pre-trial detention and Parliament (boycotted by the opposition) passed a law simplifying the process and expanding the criteria for banning political parties. Zurab Japaridze, Irakli Okruashvili and Nika Gvaramia were arrested for declining to appear before a parliamentary committee tasked with investigating alleged crimes of the former United National Movement (UNM) government (2004-2012). The committee’s stated goal is to find grounds to ban UNM and all other opposition parties. Many opposition figures have refused the committee’s summons, arguing that the committee’s aims are unconstitutional and that because the 2024 parliamentary elections lacked credibility, the current Parliament is illegitimate. If convicted of failing to comply with the summons, all three face up to one year in prison and a three-year ban from holding public office.

Update: Zurab Japaridze and two other opposition politicians were sentenced to eight months in prison on 23 June for failing to comply with the parliamentary committee’s summons. Japaridze and Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze (no relation) of Lelo Party were also banned from holding public office for two years. Five other opposition politicians are still awaiting sentencing.

Sources: OC Media (1), OC Media (2), OC Media (3), Parliament of Georgia, International IDEA, Civil.ge