New Report Finds Georgia's Autocratic Takeover Deepening, Calls for Sanctions on Officials

Read the press release in Georgian

 

September 3, 2025 — A new report, published today by the Rule of Law Lab at NYU School of Law and Gnomon Wise, a Georgian research institute, documents how the ruling Georgian Dream party led by Bidzina Ivanishvili has consolidated autocratic control despite popular domestic opposition to its tactics.

The report, the first-of-its-kind, titled “Democracy Under Siege: Georgia’s Autocratic Takeover,” comprehensively records the Ivanishvili regime's repressive tactics and capture of independent institutions to entrench authoritarian control. The report finds that democracy is in crisis in Georgia, and calls on the international community to act swiftly to counter this trend, including by imposing sanctions on Ivanishvili and other high-level Georgian Dream officials.

“This report meticulously documents Georgia's descent into authoritarianism, pinpointing the core pillars of its authoritarian regime and providing targeted strategies to halt its further entrenchment,” said David Zedelashvili, a co-author of the report and leading constitutional lawyer from the Gnomon Wise Research Institute based at the University of Georgia in Tbilisi. 

“More broadly, the report’s story stands as a cautionary tale on the perils of personalist rule: as Georgia demonstrates, such power can arise within electoral democracies, exploit systemic vulnerabilities to consolidate control, and ultimately erode democratic institutions from within. The Georgian case underscores the imperative to counter personalist agendas early and decisively—before they fully capture state and society. Delayed public responses risk fueling frustration, provoking widespread repression, and deadlocking internal paths to democratic renewal, thereby heightening the need for external intervention.”

“Once considered a bastion of democracy in the region, Georgia is now plunging into authoritarian rule under the Ivanishvili regime, in open defiance of the will of the Georgian people," said Amrit Singh, a co-author of the report and professor of practice and faculty director of the Rule of Law Lab at NYU Law. “The international community has rightly condemned Georgian Dream’s escalating repression. It must now take decisive action and impose targeted sanctions to effectively counter this repression.”

Georgia, a country of 3.6 million people that shares borders with Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, has historically been known as one of the most pro-Western of the former Soviet states. Georgia has experienced cycles of democratic reform and institutional fragility since gaining independence in 1991. The Rose Revolution of 2003 ushered in a wave of modernization and Western integration under Mikheil Saakashvili, but it also centralized executive power. 

Over the last decade, however, the ruling Georgian Dream Party and Ivanishvili regime have consolidated authoritarian control. The last year in particular has marked steep democratic regression alongside Georgian Dream’s withdrawal from EU accession talks, despite multiple polls showing that more than three-quarters of Georgian residents favor joining the European Union.

The new 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.

With few domestic avenues left for resisting authoritarian rule, the report provides key recommendations to the U.S., UK, European Union and member states, Council of Europe, and UN bodies on how to restore and strengthen democracy in Georgia. 

To read the report, please visit here. 

 

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The Rule of Law Lab is a non-partisan institute at NYU School of Law which studies and deploys legal tools—legal research, documentation, litigation and advocacy—in close collaboration with local practitioners and academics to protect democracy and the rule of law around the world. Learn more: https://www.law.nyu.edu/rule-law-lab 

Gnomon Wise is an independent research institute, based at the University of Georgia in Tbilisi, Georgia. Its team unites experienced researchers, qualified in different fields, who share and support democratic values. Learn more: https://gnomonwise.org