Georgian Parliament official accuses Ukrainian MP of double standards over political party bans

Archil Gorduladze, the Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs, on Saturday criticised OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President and Ukrainian MP Mykyta Poturaiev over what he described as double standards regarding the banning of political parties.

Gorduladze was responding to Poturaiev’s remarks describing the Georgian Constitutional Court proceedings concerning the possible banning of several political parties as “concerning.”

He pointed out that Poturaiev had previously supported legislative amendments in Ukraine that resulted in the banning of 18 political parties.

According to Gorduladze, what is considered democratic in Ukraine cannot be regarded as anti-democratic in Georgia.

“This person was not at all concerned when he supported legislative amendments in the Verkhovna Rada that resulted in 18 parties being banned. In total, 22 parties have been banned in Ukraine. He was not outraged when he called for the release of Mikheil Saakashvili, a convicted criminal and a ‘destroyer,’ but now he is outraged by the process of banning the parties of the ‘National Movement’s agents’ in Georgia”, Gorduladze said.

He added that it was contradictory to portray Saakashvili as a “beacon of democracy”, as he said had been done between 2004 and 2012, while describing the potential banning of parties associated with him as democratic backsliding.

“What is democratic in Ukraine cannot, under any circumstances, be anti-democratic in our country, regardless of which foreign official attempts to make such statements or exert pressure on the judiciary from abroad”, Gorduladze concluded.