The Georgian Parliament adopted in its third reading amendments to the Electoral Code and the Law on Political Associations of Citizens, which prohibit legal entities from making donations to political parties. The amendments, which passed with 82 votes in favor, also lowered the cap on annual spending by a political party, reducing annual expenditure from 0.05% to 0.04% of the previous year’s GDP.

Representatives of the ruling party claim that restricting legal entities from making political donations is one of the nine conditions of the European Commission. The changes were also prompted by the “Fight Against Corruption” condition, which states that further measures are needed to de-oligarchize, in particular to address the challenge of large vested interests and their influence in both the political, judicial and economic spheres.

The Venice Commission’s report on the Georgian Dream’s first attempt to draft a de-oligarchization law, clearly emphasized that the ruling party should, among other changes, develop corrective legislation and measures to strengthen the rules on political financing. In the new De-Oligarchization Action Plan, the government included perhaps one of the few steps in the area of monitoring the financial activities of political parties. The plans only included the adopted amendments to the law and regulation on the publication of reports on political party spending.

The opposition members believe that these changes do not meet the conditions set by the Commission. They claim that the legal entities were already reluctant to fund the opposition parties because the ruling party would intimidate them. They also claim that Georgian Dream will find a way to get the donations, which means that this law is passed directly against the opposition.