KIEV, July 26 – President Petro Poroshenko stripped former ally turned rival Mikheil Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship, a move that effectively bars the popular politician from running for an elected office in Ukraine.

Saakashvili, an outspoken critic of the government’s slow pace of reforms, has repeatedly promised to challenge Poroshenko and his political party at upcoming elections. He also launched a political movement aimed at fighting corruption in the government.

Saakashvili wrote on Facebook on Wednesday that “deprivation of Ukrainian citizenship is another step to the foundation of a dictatorship,” Politico reported.

Poroshenko signed decree stripping Saakashvili of citizenship following a meeting of the Commission on Citizenship under the President of Ukraine, the State Migration Service reported on its website without stating any reason.

A source at the migration service told Ukrayinska Pravda online newspaper the reason for the loss of citizenship is that he evidently provided false information when applying for it in the first place — in the questionnaire provided to get his passport in 2015, Saakashvili wrote that he was not under investigation in Ukraine or elsewhere.

Georgian authorities, however, had issued a warrant for his arrest (in absentia). Saakashvili maintains the charges are politically motivated.

Poroshenko gave his former ally Ukrainian citizenship in May 2015, and appointed him as the governor of the Odessa region. But Saakashvili resigned from the role in November 2016, and accused Poroshenko of “personally supporting” corruption.

He then started an opposition party, Mikheil Saakashvili’s Movement of New Forces, which criticized Ukrainian authorities and pledged to “bring a new generation into the political elite.”

Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia in 2004-2007 and 2008-2014, lost his Georgian citizenship in December, Politico reported. He has been accused by Georgian authorities of exceeding his authority and misusing state funds.

The news comes but hours after Saakashvili tweeted that Ukrainian authorities had themselves to blame for President Donald Trump’s tweets accusing them of interfering in the U.S. presidential election on behalf of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. (nr/po/ez)