Zourabichvili has vowed to remain on as president after her six-year time period ends on Monday, describing parliament as illegitimate and having no authority to pick out her successor.
Georgia’s outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili has attended an opposition rally in Tbilisi and slammed the choice by the electoral school to call former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili as her successor “a parody”.
53-year-old Kavelashvili was the one candidate on the poll and was chosen as Georgia’s new president by all however one of many 225 electors who confirmed up for the vote.
Kavelashvili is a hardline critic of the West and plenty of opposition figures see his appointment as proof of the ruling Georgian Dream tightening its grip on energy and shifting the nation additional away from its EU aspirations.
Zourabichvili, who has lengthy been at odds with Georgian Dream, known as Saturday’s vote a “mockery of democracy”.
She has disputed the outcomes of the 26 October parliamentary elections which noticed Georgian Dream keep in energy and like a number of opposition figures, suspects the vote was rigged with the assistance of Russia.
She’s vowed to remain on as president after her six-year time period ends on Monday, describing parliament as illegitimate and having no authority to pick out her successor.
“I stay your president – there is no such thing as a reputable Parliament and thus no reputable election or inauguration,” she posted on X late final month.
“My mandate continues.”
She has been extremely important of the ruling get together, accusing it of making use of pro-Russia insurance policies and refusing to signal a few of what she sees as their extra contentious items of laws into legislation.
Makes an attempt by Georgian Dream to question her have been unsuccessful.
Opposition events have additionally stated they are going to proceed to see Zourabichvili because the nation’s reputable president, even after Kavelashvili’s inauguration on 29 December.
Who’s Mikheil Kavelashvili?
The brand new president had a profitable profession as a footballer, taking part in as a striker for English Premier League group Manchester Metropolis in addition to quite a lot of groups within the Swiss Tremendous League.
He was first elected to parliament in 2016 as a member of Georgian Dream, and in 2022 co-founded the Folks’s Energy political motion, which was allied with Georgian Dream and turn out to be identified for its sturdy anti-Western rhetoric.
Kavelashvili was additionally one of many authors of a controversial legislation that requires organisations which obtain greater than 20% of their funding from overseas to register as “pursuing the curiosity of a overseas energy”.
The same legislation exists in Russia, which has been used to discredit organisations important of the federal government.
Unrest in Georgia
Many in Georgia dispute the outcomes of the October parliamentary elections, suspecting Russian interference to maintain what they see because the Moscow-friendly Georgian Dream in energy.
Protests in opposition to the outcomes broke out however they took on a brand new dimension and unfold past the capital Tbilisi after the Georgian Dream’s choice on 28 November to place EU accession talks on maintain till no less than 2028.
That call was in response to a European Parliament decision that criticised the elections as neither free nor honest.
It stated the election represented one other manifestation of Georgia’s continued democratic backsliding “for which the ruling Georgian Dream get together is absolutely accountable.”
Worldwide observers say they noticed cases of violence, bribery and double voting on the polls, prompting some EU lawmakers to demand a re-run.
The EU granted Georgia candidate standing in December 2023 given that it meet the bloc’s suggestions, however Brussels put that course of on maintain earlier this yr after the passage of a controversial ‘overseas affect’ legislation, which was broadly seen as a blow to democratic freedoms.
Critics have additionally accused the Georgian Dream of changing into more and more authoritarian and tilted towards Moscow. The get together lately pushed by means of legal guidelines much like these utilized by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.
