House Passes Bill to Impose Sanctions on West Asian Nation of Georgia

The House passed a bill on May 5 that would impose sanctions on the Georgian Dream Party and others who have undermined the Eastern European country’s stability. The tally was 349–42. Thirty-four Republicans and eight Democrats voted against the measure, which now heads to the Senate. The MEGOBARI Act comes as Georgia has experienced pro-democracy protests since the October 2024 parliamentary election, where the Georgian Dream Party was declared the winner. MEGOBARI stands for “Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence.” It also means “friend” in Georgian. The party is led by Bidzina Ivanishvili and, according to the bill, it “is increasingly hostile towards independent domestic civil society and its chief Euro-Atlantic partners while increasingly embracing enhanced ties with the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, and other anti-Western authoritarian regimes.”...