“In practice, the radical opposition was devoid of any tools for manipulation. They got irritated and determined not to enter into the substantive discussion, hence the so-called show, today’s physical clash,” Guram Macharashvili, a member of the People’s Power movement, remarked.

According to Macharashvili, the primary purpose of the People’s Power law is financial transparency.

“When we opted to introduce this bill, we found that the American legislation matched our aims and objectives, but we also realized that the US law was rather stringent. Thus, we determined that it should be based on American law while remaining reasonably loyal. We tabled the draft to assure financial transparency on the one hand but put in it consid erably more loyalty than in the American version. Nonetheless, the speculations emerged, and People’s Power initiated the second bill, the so-called FARA, but this did not vanish the speculation away,” Guram Macharashvili explained.

People’s Power representative went on to explain that the movement pushes for both bills to be passed in the first reading, at the level of principles, to be further sent to the Venice Commission for opinion.

“By doing so, we effectively ensured that any speculations, such as whether one or the other law was Russian, were erased,” Macharashvili added.