People’s Power has decided to introduce a new, alternative bill, “On the Registration of Foreign Agents Act,” similar to the one in the United States, said Dimitri Khundadze, a member of the People’s Power movement, at today’s briefing.

Dimitri Khundadze stated that a verbatim translation of the US bill would be made and submitted to parliament.

“Following the presentation of our draught law on foreign funding transparency, which is similar to the American Foreign Agents Registration Act (“FARA”) but more liberal, the People’s Power quickly declared that if there were any reservations about the bill, we would present an alternative, pure American law,” the MP declared.

Dimitri Khundadze explained that the People’s Power has now decided to initiate a new alternative bill, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is an analogy of the American one, saying they would complete a verbatim translation of the US bill in a day or two. The MP further highlighted that the People’s Power MPs wanted to table the exact analogue of the FARA but following the consultations with the Georgian Dream, “the ruling party advised that we consider a more liberal bill and not submit the American version verbatim.”

“We accepted their idea, adopted a more liberal one based on American law, and initiated it in the parliament. Deliberations in the committee have not yet begun; instead, vigorous, hysterical speculation has erupted around it as if the bill was equivalent to Russian law, which has nothing to do with it. The Georgian bill we initiated has no prohibition mechanisms, and those fears and speculations are absolutely groundless. Following the developments around the bill, we decided to initiate a verbatim translation of FARA as an alternative draft,” Khundadze went on.

Khundadze expects that both the public and opponents will have more options for debate, and thus speculations will be eliminated.