The White House snubbed the Georgian Dream delegation attending the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York by un-inviting them to the US president’s traditional “leaders dinner” at the last minute.

The delegation, led by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, was not amused.

US President Joe Biden promised continued US support for Ukraine in his swansong address at the general assembly.

"We cannot afford to be tired. We cannot look away. And we will not relax our support for Ukraine until Ukraine achieves a lasting and just peace based on the principles of the UN Charter,” Biden said to a rousing round of applause. Except from the Georgians.

The whole delegation sat in stony silence while the rest of the room clapped their approval, after Biden made what is likely to be his last major public speech as president.

During the UNGA, the US president usually hosts a gala dinner for the collected heads of state that arrive in New York for the meeting. This year it was due to take place on the evening of September 25. However, shortly before the event was to happen the Georgian delegation got a call saying the invite had been rescinded.

Subsequently, the US Embassy confirmed the reports, explaining this decision was due to the “anti-democratic actions” of the Georgian authorities and its “negative rhetoric” towards the West.

Requests for meetings between Kobakhidze and the US administration as well as with US National Security Advisor of Jake Sullivan were also refused. A representative of the US administration told VOA that "the recent actions and statements of the Georgian government show shocking disrespect for democracy and the will of the Georgian people." 

Georgia is an EU member aspirant and the one-time poster boy for liberal economic and political reforms in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). However, after the country’s politics was captured by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who effectively rules the country from the shadows, relations have decayed dramatically.

In August, Georgian Dream recently forced through a so-called foreign agents law, modelled on a similar Russian law that the Kremlin has used to crack down on the media and repress what political opposition movements remain in Russia. The law sparked the biggest demonstrations in Tbilisi since its independence in 1991 with more than 300,000 protesters flooding the streets and clashing with police.

That was followed by another Russian invention, an anti-LGBT “propaganda” law, that was passed on September 17. The next day Georgia’s most famous trans woman and TV personality Kesaria Abramidze was brutally murdered, stabbed to death by her partner.

The US has cut its civil society funding to Georgia and imposed some sanctions on Ivanishvili as the aggressive rhetoric flying between Tbilisi and Washington has steadily ratcheted up. Several European MEPs have also threatened to nix Georgia’s invitation to join the EU due to the backsliding on liberal reforms.

However, both the EU and US are still pulling their punches. The May mass protests faded away as the crowds, which remain committed to joining the EU, shied away from a second revolution and are preparing to try to oust Georgian Dream at the upcoming parliamentary elections at the end of October. Currently Georgian Dream’s popularity has fallen from around 45% to some 30%, according to local polls, but the opposition remains highly fragmented; no single opposition party has more than 10% and they are currently trying to thrash out an alliance to unite ahead of the elections, led by Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili.

As the Georgian Dream-led government increasingly butts heads with the citizens, Ivanishvili has become increasingly outspoken. During the demonstrations earlier this year he gave a bizarre rambling speech to a crowd bussed in by the authorities for the occasion, where he blamed the Western “Party of War” for all of Georgia’s woes.

More recently on September 16 he gave another speech, blaming the 2008 war with Russia on Georgian Dream’s main rival, the United National Movement (UNM), formerly led by ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, and promised to ban the party using the new foreign agents law if Georgian Dream win the October elections.

Saakashvili returned to Georgia several years ago but was promptly arrested, and he is now in jail serving a six-year sentence for abuse of office and corruption; his health has visibly deteriorated.