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A mass brawl broke out on the floor of Georgia’s parliament Monday, with one of the country’s most senior politicians assaulted amid growing anger over new proposed restrictions on civil society.
Mamuka Mdinaradze, the parliamentary leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party, was speaking at the podium about the new law when he was struck in the face by opposition MP Aleko Elisashvili. A fistfight then broke out between pro-government and anti-government parliamentarians.
Elisashvili, the leader of the minor Citizens party, was met with cheers by protesters outside the assembly building, where demonstrators have been gathering since Georgian Dream last week reintroduced a hotly contested “foreign agent” bill.
The government says the move, which will apply to NGOs, campaign groups and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad, is necessary to prevent undue influence over Georgian politics.
Critics, however, liken it to Russia’s own foreign agent law that has been used to stifle dissent in the country, branding it the “Russian law.” Major protests last year forced Georgian Dream to shelve the plans, before unexpectedly reintroducing them earlier this month.
“We should stick this law up their ass,” Elisashvili said to reporters following the incident. “We’re either Georgians or slaves, which we are not. Mdinaradze got punched in [his] Russian face.”
Mdinaradze later accused his assailant of having staged “a planned, supposedly paid, provocation.”
Georgia, which was granted EU candidate status last year despite concerns over democratic backsliding, has been warned by Brussels that its future membership depends on tackling political polarization and strengthening human rights protections. Last week, an EU official told POLITICO that Georgian Dream should “withdraw” the bill, which the Commission has previously said is “incompatible with EU values.”
However, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has fired back at the EU — as well as the U.S., which has also expressed concern. He called on ambassadors from Brussels and Washington to debate the issue publicly with him, accusing foreign officials of choosing to “persist to make groundless political statements in public space.”
