Georgian Parliament official: opposition, NGOs will not admit their warnings about Transparency Law were unfounded

Davit Matikashvili, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Committee on Procedural Issues and Rules, on Thursday said that the domestic opposition and parts of the non-governmental sector would not acknowledge that their previous warnings about the consequences of Georgia’s transparency law had been unfounded.

Matikashvili was responding to the fact that those groups, which had warned the public about what they described as destructive consequences of the transparency legislation, have yet to provide evidence supporting their claims, including a list of allegedly banned organisations or information about farmers, students or emigrants who they said would be affected.

“How can you imagine what drives unpatriotic, proxy forces hostile to the country toward their own homeland? Let us not expect such an admission”, Matikashvili said.

He further stressed that the opposition and NGOs would not acknowledge that their predictions were wrong because doing so would expose what he described as their “real face” to the public.

“They will not admit it and, by doing so, they will once again avoid showing our society their own wrongdoing and their real face - what hostile forces are acting against Georgia”, he concluded.