By Felix Light

TBILISI (Reuters) -The speaker of Georgia’s parliament said on Tuesday that the ruling Georgian Dream party is filing a lawsuit with the constitutional court to declare the three largest opposition parties illegal.

Speaking at a briefing, Shalva Papuashvili said that the suit requests that the court ban the Coalition for Change, former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement, and the Strong Georgia bloc, all of which hold strongly pro-Western views.

Georgia’s Interpress news agency quoted him as all three parties pose “a real threat to the constitutional order”.

Once among the most democratic and pro-Western of the successor states to rise from the Soviet Union’s ashes, Georgia has become rapidly more authoritarian since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, w

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