“I will tell you that we will be watching the election next month… If what you say is true about these people and what they want, you are going to get an opportunity in our tour to throw the rascals out and then take a hold of that, your own future. We will be watching closely, praying for you and hope it will work,” US Senator Jim Risch said at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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Before that, Eka Gigauri, the head of Transparency International - Georgia, spoke about how, despite the "heavy disinformation campaign" that has been ongoing for years, the majority of Georgia's population still supports the country's integration into the European Union and NATO.
During the committee hearing, Senator Risch questioned why there is a significant number of people in Georgia who "seem to want to return to the communist and socialist way of life that existed in Russia."
“we're seeing this backslide, and we don't, we don't really understand it, I mean, you're a country of little under 4 million people, and it seems like there's at least a significant one toward embracing the Russian form of government and the Russian repression. We just don't understand it. I mean you got your freedom from Russia and why the country would be drifting back that way. We look at this in America - Georgia and we compare it to the 3 baltics, and you know, those are small countries two of one is 1.5 million and one is a 2.5 and I'll tell you what, those people, they come and see us all the time, they are united, they are firm, they are free. They want our help. They don't want anything to do with Russia in any way, shape or form. And yet? Here you have Georgia, where Russia invaded and occupied two of its territories, it promised to leave and again did not leave, it has occupied these territories still," the senator noted.
On September 12, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing titled Anti-NGO Laws and Other Tools of Democratic Repression. During the hearing, they also discussed the Russian-style foreign agents law adopted by Georgian Dream in Georgia.
