🔴Georgia risks sliding into Russia’s orbit and becoming another Belarus - Opposition figure

🔴Khatia Dekanoidze, head of Georgia’s parliamentary opposition, spoke in an interview with NV Radio about the controversial “foreign agent” bill and the threats it poses to Georgia.
If the bill passes, it may create a barrier to Georgia’s EU and NATO aspirations, according to Dekanoidze.
“Georgian citizens, especially the younger generation, call this bill ‘Russian’ because Russia had the same passed one in 2012,” she said.
“They recognized as foreign agents such people as Alexei Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, who were then either killed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, or they left Russia. Therefore, I think that what awaits Georgia if the bill is passed is becoming another Belarus, where people realize that no democracy can take root.”
If the parliament supports the bill in the third reading, the Georgian people’s resistance will be very serious, Dekanoidze suggested.
“I’m sure that Georgians won’t live under a dictator like Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko,” she said.
“It’s not a question of domestic politics, it’s a question of where we’re going. I’m absolutely certain that the oligarch who controls the ruling Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili wants to take over Georgia just like, but I don’t think he’ll get away with that.”
After the Georgian government submitted another draft of the bill to the parliament in April, mass protests against the controversial legislation have taken place across the country.
Georgia's parliament gave initial approval to a bill on "foreign agents" that the European Union said risked blocking the country's path to membership.
The fate of the bill is widely seen as a test of whether Georgia, 33 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, intends to pursue a path of integration with the West or move closer towards Russia.
As many as 10,000 opponents of the bill gathered outside the parliament, sitting atop cars and buildings -- a day after police used pepper spray to clear protesters away from part of the building.
Several thousand protesters moved over to the government building, heavily guarded by police, to demand a meeting with Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, the bill's principal backer.