Twenty years ago, the peaceful Rose Revolution was about to transform Georgia, shake the region and put the Kremlin on alert, but between protests Nini Gogiberidze, a co-founder of the Kmara (“Enough”) movement, was preparing for a law exam rather than a historic victory over her country’s ex-communist old guard, The Irish Times reports:
[The protests] were led by Mikheil Saakashvili, a 35-year-old US-educated lawyer who took power a few months later and launched a reform drive that made Georgia a key western ally in a Black Sea region that Russia views as its own backyard…Yet this week’s anniversary finds Georgia deeply divided: Saakashvili is serving a six-year jail term for abuse of power, while the current government is accused of restoring Russian influence and will not even officially mark a revolution that it derides, and suspects that Gogiberidze and other activists are involved in a US-backed plot to stage a coup.
The European Commission’s November recommendation that EU candidacy status be granted to Georgia is the latest in a string of hard-won victories the Georgian people have achieved in recent months, the National Endowment for Democracy adds.
Kmara (Enough!)
In March, hundreds of thousands of Georgians took to the streets and forced the government to abandon a draconian Russian-style NGO law. In October, a controversial partisan gambit to impeach President Salome Zurabishvili failed after vocal opposition both in the parliament and throughout civil society.
The loudest voices pushing back against democratic decline in the country belong to youth, civil society, and parliamentarians such as the women on this panel. Women from different political parties are coming together to highlight the importance of expanding political participation and keeping European integration the nation’s top priority.
Please join a conversation with distinguished panelists and Georgian parliamentarians as they discuss Georgia’s political trajectory and their work at the forefront of the struggle for Georgia’s European future. This event is co-sponsored by the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ambassador Daniel Fried (opening remarks) is currently the Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy.
Ana Buchukuri is a member of parliament from the “For Georgia” party and an Associate Professor at “New Vison” University.
Khatia Dekanoidze is an independent member of parliament.
Tinatin Khidasheli is a visiting lecturer at Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA) and Ilia State University.
Ana Natsvlishvili a member of parliament from the “Lelo” party and an associate professor at the Institute for Public Affairs.
Miriam Lanskoy (moderator) is Senior Director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy.
This event will be held in-person and livestreamed. Click the RSVP button above to register to attend in-person or register to receive the livestream information. All in-person guests must be registered to be admitted to the event. RSVP
Protests ended plans to brand #Georgia‘s civil society groups as “foreign agents”. “I was ready personally to go to prison rather than register myself as a spy or whatever they wanted to call us, as they do in Russia,” says @ekagigauri_ @Transparency_GE . https://t.co/AXSRc7cLSK
— Democracy Digest (@demdigest) November 22, 2023
