Page 50 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine April 2025

50 I Eurasia bne April 2025
going only to NGOs is completely false.
This whole situation represents a stand- off that can be solved in my view only through very active and inventive diplo- macy to achieve the only peaceful way out of such a situation: a re-run of the October 2024 parliamentary elections. We have local elections planned for the autumn, and these should be accompa- nied by parliamentary elections.
You recently presented a five-step plan for new elections which focuses on coordination and cooperation of political forces, transparency and fraud prevention...
And the increased mobilisation of the people for preventing fraud following the experience they had in the October 2024 elections ... Allow the Georgian diaspora to vote; this was artificially prevented in October. The legislation
is there for our 1mn diaspora voters to be represented and be able to vote, and they should be allowed to vote. So there is a whole set of things that can be done differently in future elections.
Again, we depend on more active diplomacy from our partners because it’s in their interests, as well as very much in ours, to prevent the deepening of a crisis in Georgia that might turn into instability.
What needs to happen in Georgia to reach a situation where the Georgian Dream party agrees to participate
in a second round of parliamentary elections?
We are in a standoff. I don’t think
any part will change by itself: the government is going to continue its repressive actions. On the other side
the protesters [have] ups and downs. We’ve had a down period as we’ve had one of the most freezing winters ever
in Georgia; spring is coming so the protests will certainly not be watered down as people have no way back. There are so many repressive measures that they can only continue their protest.
What can change this standoff and this crisis is a diplomatic intervention ... and again that concerns the EU but also the Americans. If they want peace in Ukraine they cannot want a new crisis in Georgia.
An Economist Intelligence Unit survey ranked Georgia’s democratic decline in 2024 as the fourth steepest globally. Did you ever expect that democratic decline in Georgia would happen so rapidly and dramatically?
Never, and I think that is a very big challenge for us. It’s more than a chal- lenge, it’s tragic. But it’s also a very big
challenge for the EU. If a country that had candidate status just a year ago can turn its back on the European bloc by halting the process of rapprochement and by passing all this legislation which goes against all the fundamental rights and principles upon which the EU was founded, and the EU does not react and does not have any means or will to react, then that should be very [concerning] for the EU itself. It is confronting a small country of 3.7mn inhabitants and this emerging European power can’t do anything about that?
Georgia acts as a test for Russia’s strategy of hybrid warfare, but it’s also a test for Europe.
The EU has to review their decision- making process. You cannot have two countries which block decisions when the stakes are so high. They have to review their system because it’s very slow. We see now when organisations are left without any support after the freezing of USAID and the halting of EU support programmes for the Georgian budget ... What is left if nobody can
do anything? These are challenges for the future and may also concern other countries. What concerns Georgia always concerns the whole region – the Black Sea, Armenia, Azerbaijan. It’s not only Georgia.
Tajikistan again in spotlight as “terrorism hub” after New York arrest
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The arrest of a Tajik man in New York on a charge of sending money to members of terrorist network Islamic State (IS or ISIS) in Turkey and Syria has sparked renewed debate over the level of radicalisation and extremist recruitment in Tajikistan.
Truck driver Mansuri Manuchekhri, 33, was ordered into custody during an appearance in a federal court in
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Brooklyn, New York, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced on February 26.
It stated: “A criminal complaint was unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn charging Mansuri Manuchekhri with conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and to the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), possessing firearms
while unlawfully in the United States and immigration fraud. Manuchekhri was arrested today and made his initial appearance this afternoon before United States Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy who ordered the defendant detained.”
“As alleged, the defendant, who was in the United States illegally, not only facilitated tens of thousands of dollars