Pia Kauma, the president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), has postponed a planned delegation visit to Georgia following an outcry from both the domestic and international political community that such a display of diplomacy would only serve to legitimise the Caucasus country's contested Georgian Dream (GD) government.

“Following discussions and after close consideration, I've decided to postpone visiting Georgia until a time that the OSCE PA’s engagement would be most effective,” Kauma wrote on X on January 6, two days before the visit was due to commence.

Georgia has been locked in political crisis since parliamentary elections in October 2024, in which the Georgian Dream party claimed victory amid widespread allegations of vote manipulation and electoral violations.

A wave of civil unrest followed and intensified on November 28 when the newly re-elected Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia would be suspending its EU accession bid until 2028, a move many Georgians view as a betrayal of their country’s Euro-Atlantic future.

Demonstrators in Tbilisi took to the streets for the 41^st consecutive day on January 6, calling for a new round of elections and the release of the hundreds detained during the first weeks of demonstrations, many of whom suffered brutal mistreatment at the hands of police.

Writing on X on January 5, Latvian MEP Rihards Kols first raised the issue of Kauma’s visit to Georgia, calling it “a disastrous and ill-timed move”.

“Such a visit would hand the [Georgian Dream] regime a propaganda victory, legitimising an autocracy-in-the-making while critically undermining the OSCE PA’s credibility,” Kols stated in a post on the social platform.

Kols post continued that Kauma’s proposed visit coincides with the repressive consolidation of power by GD founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili, via “Russian-style preventive arrests, draconian laws, violent suppression of protests, and in the aftermath of elections that… were neither fair nor transparent”.

A wave of similar condemnation followed from other MEPs, Georgian opposition politicians and the country’s Western political partners.

“I am hearing that Pia Kauma plans a visit to Tbilisi. This initiative is disastrous. After rigged elections and spectacular democratic backsliding, when a “new president” without legitimacy praises Putin and insults Georgian people’s aspirations, don’t go Pia Kauma!” stated the French MEP, Nathalie Loiseau.

On December 29, the anti-Western, Georgian Dream loyalist Mikheil Kavelashvili was inaugurated as Georgia’s sixth president following an election in which he was the only candidate. Many Georgians view his appointment as head of state as Georgian Dream’s attempt to subordinate the country’s last remaining liberal institution to their power.

Member of the German Bundestag, Michael Roth, who visited Tbilisi to express his solidary with protesters following the contested October elections, described a trip to Georgia by Kauma as a “serious mistake”. “The OSCE PA must not legitimise an illegitimate president, government + parliament that emerged from rigged elections,” Roth wrote on X.

Giorgi Gakharia, leader of the Georgian opposition coalition For Georgia, commented that, while his country’s opposition forces “value the OSCE PA’s engagement”, the timing of Kauma’s visit to Tbilisi is “deeply troubling”. “Amid Georgia’s grave political crisis, any engagement with Ivanishvili’s regime risks granting legitimacy to its repressive rule,” the politician wrote on X.

Similarly, on January 5, Georgia’s other three major opposition blocs – UNM-Unity, Strong Georgia, and Coalition for Change – published a joint letter to Kauma, arguing that, unless her coming to Georgia “facilitates a conducive environment for meaningful steps … towards resolving the political crisis, namely the release of all political prisoners and … new parliamentary elections”, she should consider postponing her trip.

Former Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili said that the planned visit “outrages the people standing on the Tbilisi streets for 40 nights protesting rigged elections and a turn to Russia”, adding that “such an ill-timed visit” would do nothing to resolve the ongoing political crisis.

Ahead of the cancellation, US Representative Joe Wilson, who has emerged recently as one of the most outspoken GD critics in Congress, also urged the OSCE PA president “NOT to visit Tbilisi at this time”.

“The Ivanishvili regime will only use this visit as a means to legitimise their authoritarian takeover” and “tenuous grasp on power”, Wilson stated on January 5.

Following Kauma’s announcement that she had made the decision to postpone her visit, Kols thanked the OSCE PA president for “listening to the concerns raised”, adding that “constructive engagement begins with timing and context”.

Zourabichvili also commented on the move to delay the visit, calling it a “very wise decision”.