In Georgia, the impending passage of a controversial ''foreign agents'' law will raise the stakes for the October 2024 election, but the ruling party is still set to win another term, which would ensure the continued stagnation of the country's Western integration in the years ahead. On May 14, the Georgian Parliament passed the divisive foreign agents bill in a third and final reading despite continued protests against the law, which critics argue is intended to stifle media and civil society organizations by subjecting entities that receive over 20% of their funding from abroad to stringent reporting requirements. The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party first attempted to pass the bill in March 2023, but backed off after several days of protests. At the time, GD was also concerned the law could derail its push to receive EU candidate status (which Brussels later granted in December). This time around, the government decided to pass the bill regardless of ongoing protests and authorized the police to clear demonstrators blocking major streets and government buildings. While President Salome Zourabichvili (an independent) has pledged to veto the bill, this would only slightly delay its final adoption and fuel the protest movement, as GD has enough votes in parliament to override a presidential veto.

• The controversial foreign agents bill has sparked mass protests in the capital Tbilisi since the government first announced its intention to reintroduce the bill in early April. The law would require media and noncommercial organizations to register as ''pursuing the interests of a foreign power'' if they receive more than 20% of their budget from sources abroad, or be subject to heavy fines. The Georgian opposition often refers to the bill as the ''Russian law,'' since it is modeled off of a law Russia passed in 2012 that the Russian government has since used to stifle civil society. 
• In September, GD tried to impeach Zourabichvili but later backed off amid perceptions it could hurt the county's bid to receive EU candidate status. On April 30, Zurabishvili criticized the ruling party's actions to pass the law as a ''real Putin move.''

The passage of the bill and GD's resolve to stifle opposition reflect the government's intent to continue its geopolitical balancing toward Moscow amid the belief that Russia will emerge victorious in Ukraine. Ideologically and politically led by former prime minister, billionaire and oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, GD is becoming increasingly skeptical of Georgia's European and Transatlantic integration amid perceptions that Russia will likely emerge victorious from the war in Ukraine once a peace settlement is concluded in the coming years. GD fears that if Russia wins the war and Georgia does not moderate its pro-Western stances, Moscow could use its expanded military-industrial complex and battle-tested army to threaten Georgia with invasion and the annexation of additional territories by claiming the country's EU and NATO aspirations pose a threat to Russian interests and Russian citizens in Georgia's breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Ivanishvili likely believes GD's passage of the foreign agents bill will make his country less of a target for Russia because the bill is based on a very similar law in Russia passed in 2012 to suppress pro-Western opponents of the government. Russia will likely seek to reward GD for the bill's passage by declining to further destabilize the country, but in the years ahead, Moscow would like to see the Georgian government continue its increasingly anti-Western rhetoric and increase trade with Russia. 

• Ivanishvili founded Georgian Dream and became the party's first prime minister after defeating his predecessor Mikheil Saakashvili's pro-Western government in the 2012 elections. On Feb. 8, Irakli Kobakhidze, a close Ivanishvili associate, became Georgia's prime minister, having previously served as the GD party chairman. The move paved the way for Ivanishvili to openly resume his leadership of the ruling party. 
• According to a December poll conducted by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), while the overwhelming majority of Georgians claim support for EU membership (79%) and NATO membership (67%), the percentage of Georgians who say the country should have exclusively pro-Western foreign policy is only 37%, with an equal 36% saying Georgia should also have good relations with Russia. 

The bill's passage highlights the stakes of the country's October 2024 parliamentary election, but while the bill may increase and radicalize supporters of the pro-Western opposition, GD is still favored to stay in power. According to opinion polls, GD will win the Oct. 26 general election despite the ongoing anti-government protests over the foreign agents bill. The pro-Western opposition is notoriously fragmented among dozens of parties, which will also contribute to GD's victory. Should GD win by a similar margin and vote share to the 2020 election (when it received 48% of the vote), it will probably trigger a period of protests. But this will not keep the party from continuing Georgia's geopolitical rebalancing toward the East by striking new commercial deals with China and refusing to reduce trade and political ties with Russia. While GD will still officially claim it wants to join the European Union, its increasingly anti-Western orientation will severely reduce real progress on Georgia's accession to the bloc. In an alternative but unlikely scenario, a genuinely pro-Western government could assume power, either by winning the election outright, or by gaining enough seats to destabilize a GD-led government and eventually assume power following mass protests. Such a government would seek to reduce Russian influence and take much more concrete and sincere action toward Western integration. But this would likely prompt Russia to increase its destabilization efforts in Georgia, including by annexing the Georgian territories it already occupies (Abkhazia and South Ossetia). Years later, following the conclusion of the Ukraine war, Russia could even threaten to invade and occupy the rest of Georgia — potentially going further than Russia's 2008 invasion of the country, when Russian forces did not attempt to enter Tbilisi. 

• On May 14, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the foreign agents bill coming into force would ''compel'' the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to ''fundamentally reassess [its] relationship with Georgia.''