In a very similar way, the oligarchic regimes in the two countries of the Eastern Partnership show intolerance against the representatives of civil society. If the NGOs do not sympathize with the regime, they risk being treated as representatives of the political opposition, political pundit Dionis Cenușa says in a feature article for IPN Agency.
The expert noted that in the case of Georgia, after the 2012 elections that were won by Ivanishvili’s party (Georgian Dream), some of the functionaries left the state institutions and integrated into the NGO sector. The government associates the civic activity of ex-functionaries from the period of Mikheil Saakashvili’s regime with political bias in favor of the opposition.
Usually, the NGOs formulate their criticism of the authorities depending on the progress made in doing reforms. However, the DPM considers their activity is political in nature as some of the representatives of civil society openly display political sympathies.
According to Dionis Cenușa, in Moldova, as in Georgia, particular migration from the public sector to civil society was noticed after Vladimir Plahotniuc monopolized the political decision-making mechanism. Anyway, the promotion of the democratic principles concerning the separation of powers in the state, free elections, open society and human rights by the NGO sector will always place him against those governments that undermine the democratic institutions.
Besides the emphasized similitudes, three major distinct aspects that reveal different political realities can be seen in the approaches adopted by civil society in Georgia and in Moldova.
First of all, the NGOs pronounce themselves with a different tonality on the conditions of rule of law functioning and the political factor’s interference in the judicial system. In Moldova, the “erosion” of the rule of law is underlined, while civil society in Georgia warns that the amplification of informal government affects the rule of law, but this problem is not yet in the terminal phase.
The difference in perception results from the record highs reached by the dysfunctionalities in Moldova (invalidation of elections in Chisinau) and from the fact that the degradation of the situation in Georgia is less visible owing to the considerable progress made earlier.
The second feature that makes Moldovan civil society different from the Georgian one is the nature of the appeals made to foreign players.
The demands of the Moldovan NGOs are more radical, and start from the stopping of financial assistance and continue with the creation of a mechanism of individual sanctions for anti-democratic deviations. Civic activism in Georgia for now is reduced to the warning of foreign partners and omits the subject of conditionality and the necessity of suspending assistance or imposing particular sanctions against the government managed by Ivanishvili.
The third aspect is the motivation of the civil sector to internationalize internal problems.
From this viewpoint, the Moldovan NGOs made multiple efforts to highlight the democratic involutions and engaged in an intense communication with European institutions, such as the European Parliament and the European External Action Service. Civil society’s insistence and perseverance generated stiff competition for projecting the country’s image abroad both in relation to the Moldovan authorities, and to the lobby activities lunched by the DPM in Brussels and Washington. C
Unlike their Moldovan colleagues, Georgian civil society still focuses on communication inside the country. This shows that they bank on the society’s capacity and electoral conditions that predispose to influencing the political class in the limits of the Georgian electoral process, concluded Dionis Cenușa.
