Kakha Kaladze called the American senator a fraud and an enemy of Georgia

Georgian Dream Secretary General and Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze called US Senator Jim Risch an enemy of Georgia for his words about the Georgian people.

According to Risch, at the parliamentary elections in October, the Georgian people will have the opportunity to "throw out the scoundrels and take their own future into their own hands." The senator said this at a meeting of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where the events in Georgia after the adoption of the law on foreign agents.

"As for those who mention Georgia in such words, they are scammers. It doesn't matter if it's a senator or anyone. Anyone who insults my country, be it an American, a European, a Russian or a Chinese, for me they are all enemies... Those who will brazenly treat my people and make such statements, they are all enemies," Kaladze said in response.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, in turn, agreed with the American senator that scoundrels have no place in Georgian politics, but called the opposition scoundrels.

"Rish said that after these elections the villains will be expelled from Georgian politics. I think it's true. This is our promise. After these elections, all scoundrels, using his term, should be banned in Georgian politics," Kobakhidze told reporters.

The ruling Georgian Dream party has promised supporters, in case of obtaining a constitutional majority in the elections, to launch a legal process to recognize ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement party and associated associations as unconstitutional.

The Prime Minister of Georgia commented on the speech in In the Senate of the head of the NGO "International Transparency — Georgia" Eka Gigauri, she accused the Georgian authorities of spreading misinformation about the civil sector.

"As for Eka Gigauri, it was another lustration. It was an ordinary speech by Sergo Ordzhonikidze (a revolutionary who played one of the key roles in overthrowing the government of the First Georgian Democratic Republic in 1921)," Kobakhidze said.

According to him, it was only clear from Gigauri's speech that she didn't even know English properly.

The topic of the hearings in The US Senate on September 12 sounded as follows: "Laws against NGOs and other instruments of democratic repression." In his opening speech, Democratic Senator Ben Cardin said that in recent years, more and more countries that were considered mostly democratic or partially free are adopting laws against non-governmental organizations and using them as a tool of repression.

"It is deeply disturbing that democracies from Georgia to India and Turkey have used their legal systems against journalists, opposition politicians, human rights defenders and civil society," Cardin said.

After that, Republican Jim Risch said he was disappointed with the regression of democracy in Georgia. He noted that the authorities of the country adopted a law against NGOs, despite the warnings of the European Union about the rejection of the integration process with the EU.

As a speaker from In Georgia, Eka Gigauri was invited to the hearings, which the Georgian Dream calls a prime example of a foreign agent. Speaking to US senators, Gigauri said that although the Georgian authorities do not say that the West is bad, they spread such information so that people have questions.