Publications

The report comprehensively documents the Ivanishvili regime's repressive tactics and capture of independent institutions to entrench authoritarian control. Over the last decade, the ruling Georgian Dream Party and Ivanishvili regime have consolidated personalist autocracy. The last year in particular has marked steep democratic regression alongside Georgian Dream’s withdrawal from EU accession talks.

The report describes, in detail, the key elements of the regime’s ten-pronged authoritarian strategy, focusing on:

• Manipulation of elections;
• Capture of the judiciary; 
• Politicizing the prosecution service; 
• Weaponizing state agencies; 
• Capturing the civil service and independent agencies; 
• Targeting opposition parties and leaders; 
• Suppressing protest; 
• Targeting civil society organizations and LGBTQI+ communities; 
• Replacing independent media with propaganda media; and 
• Restricting academic freedom.

Given the limited domestic means remaining in Georgia to confront authoritarianism, the report includes key recommendations to the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and its member states, the Council of Europe, and UN bodies on how democracy in Georgia can be restored and strengthened.

See the attached file for the entire report.