(Bloomberg) -- Georgia’s lari fell to the weakest level against the dollar in two years after a decision by the ruling party to delay talks on European Union membership triggered violent clashes in the capital city.
Law enforcement deployed water canon and tear gas to clear protesters from the main avenue in Tbilisi in a fourth night of protests that started last week after Georgian Dream announced that it will push back talks with the EU until 2028. Demonstrators used fireworks and built barricades, while police said 224 people had been detained.
The lari weakened as much as 2.5% to 2.8799 per dollar, the lowest level since September, 2022, before trading at 2.8773 as 4:09 pm in Tbilisi.
President Salome Zourabichvili, whose post is largely ceremonial, has encouraged protests against what she called a “Russian special operation” seeking to bolster Moscow’s influence and thwart the Black Sea nation’s goal of joining the EU and NATO. With her term due to expire this month, she has vowed to remain in her post, disputing the results of parliamentary elections in October that led to weeks of rallies.
Georgian Dream, which was founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, won the vote to extend its 12-year rule by four more years, according to the Central Election Commission. Opposition lawmakers who back a pro-European charter have boycotted the new parliament and filed motions in court, alleging fraud.
Georgia applied to join the EU in 2022, along with Ukraine and Moldova, but hasn’t yet formally agreed to open the years-long process of negotiating membership.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Monday reiterated a claim that the clashes were fueled by meddling from overseas. “Foreign forces are involved in financing a revolution here,” he said at a government meeting.
The premier said last week that a repetition of the Ukrainian Maidan, a reference to protests in Kyiv in 2013 when then-President Viktor Yanukovych declined to sign an association agreement with EU and was toppled by popular protests, wasn’t possible in his country.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation in Georgia was similar. “There is an obvious attempt to exacerbate the situation,” he was quoted by the Interfax news service as saying. “The most direct parallel that can be drawn is the events on Maidan in Ukraine.”
Georgian Dream last week chose Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former soccer player and current lawmaker, to be their presidential candidate in the Dec. 14 election to replace the pro-Western Zourabichvili. The president will be chosen by the country’s Electoral College consisting of 300 people, including all members of parliament.
The US criticized the government’s actions and suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia, saying the Georgian Dream party’s “various anti-democratic actions” violated the mechanism’s core principles. Kaja Kallas, in her first day as the EU’s top diplomat, said on Sunday that the ruling party’s actions would “have direct consequences” from the EU side.
--With assistance from Yuliya Fedorinova.
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