To save Georgian democracy, Biden should sanction the country’s oligarchs

New US visa and financial sanctions imposed this month against the Georgian government and representatives of the ruling party, Georgian Dream, fell short because they failed to include the man responsible for Georgia’s authoritarian and pro-Russian direction, the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.

The new sanctions imposed by the Biden administration came on top of others implemented earlier this year for corruption, antidemocratic behavior and human rights abuses. The sanctions were well warranted, but they don’t go far enough.

The US should make clear it will use its financial leverage against Ivanishvili himself and his party should they continue on a path that would be disastrous for the Georgian people and the US-Georgian relationship.

Ivanishvili made his fortune doing business in Russia before returning to his homeland and securing victory for his Georgian Dream party in 2012 parliamentary elections. Since 2012, he has been the power behind the throne, calling the shots despite holding an official position for only the first of those 12 years. During that time, he has sought to improve ties with Moscow, despite Russia’s continued occupation of 20 percent of Georgian territory after its invasion in 2008. Direct flights between Georgia and Russia have been restored, bringing thousands of Russians to Georgia, and trade between the two countries are booming.

His ruling party has also adopted Russian-style legislation — a law requiring domestic nongovernmental organizations receiving foreign funding to register as “agents under foreign influence,” despite huge protests against the law. It also enacted a Russian-style law banning same-sex marriages, adoptions by same-sex couples, and transgender medical treatments. Ivanishvili recently suggested that the previous government, led by former President (and now politician) Mikheil Saakashvili, not Russia, was responsible for the bloodshed of 2008 and the Russian occupation that followed.

Ivanishvili announced his formal return to Georgian politics shortly after the European Union announced last December that he would grant candidacy status to Georgia — many months before critical elections in October.

On the campaign trail, his fire-breathing speeches promised dire antidemocratic and anti-Western consequences if the opposition wins the Oct. 26 parliamentary elections. He has claimed that the United States and Europe (“the Global War Party”) are funding the leaders of the opposition and directing them to reinstall Saakashvili’s “insane and sadistic regime” and open a “second front” with Russia.

Ivanishvili asserted that the ruling party would prevent such an outcome “at any cost,” a not-so-veiled threat to resort to election manipulation.

Suggesting that the entire pro-Western opposition is aligned with Saakashvili, he promised a “Georgian Nuremberg trial” against it soon after the elections. He said he would impose on the pro-Western opposition the “harsh political and legal judgment it deserves” for Saakashvili’s “bloody rule.” Asked who in particular would be banned and prevented from entering parliament, his prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, named names — all the main opposition parties.

Georgian Dream already controls all three branches of government. By promising to outlaw the opposition and cripple civil society and independent media, Ivanishvili and Kobakhidze are in essence describing an anti-Western totalitarian regime ruling a pro-Western population.

Instead, the US must tell Ivanishvili that if he rigs the October election in his favor, or carries out his threat to ban the opposition, he and his billions will face the full brunt of Treasury Department financial sanctions.

In truth, sanctioning Ivanishvili is something that should have been done months ago, including back when he and his stooges in the government and parliament were launching nasty rhetorical attacks against the previous US ambassador and members of Congress. If we convince him we will impose costly personal sanctions if he carries out his implicit threat to change the election results — and his explicit threat to ban all opposition and turn Georgia into an anti-Western dictatorship — we could deter him from doing so.

In addition, with concerns rampant about election rigging and with civil society under attack, international election observers will need to be vigilant in calling out any fraud and abuse. The United States and its allies must stand firm against legitimizing a fraudulent election.

Georgia Dream remains the leading vote getter but does not appear likely to win a majority of the vote, according to recent polls ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections. That could open the way for a coalition of opposition parties to unite and defeat Georgian Dream, although those parties are struggling to unite completely.

Polls consistently show that the people of Georgia remain very pro-American, pro-European Union, pro-NATO and pro-democracy. Georgia, once a vibrant democracy in a difficult neighborhood, has become a problem instead of a partner, but one over which the United States and the European Union both have considerable interests and influence — if they choose to exercise them.

Dangling the threat of painful, targeted sanctions now could save the people of Georgia from the pro-Russian, authoritarian future the oligarch has promised them.

Ambassador (ret.) Ian Kelly is Ambassador in Residence at Northwestern University and a former US ambassador to Georgia and to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. David J. Kramer is executive director of the George W. Bush Institute and a former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.