Georgian Parliament Elects Pro-Russian Mijail Kavelashvili as President
Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili (C), 2024. X/ @JohnEdgarCarter
December 14, 2024 Hour: 8:19 am
He replaces pro-European opposition leader Salome Zurabishvili, who refuses to vacate her position.
On Saturday, the Central Election Commission announced that Mijail Kavelashvili, of the ruling Georgian Dream party, was elected president of the country during a parliamentary vote boycotted by the opposition.
RELATED:
Protests in Georgia Have Lasted for Six Days
Kavelashvili, who received the support of 224 out of 300 national and municipal deputies convened for the vote, replaces pro-European opposition leader Salome Zurabishvili. Zurabishvili refuses to vacate her position, claiming that the legislature resulting from the October parliamentary elections lacks legitimacy.
As the sole candidate in the election, Kavelashvili becomes the sixth president in the country’s history since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. A former ruling party deputy since 2016, he also had a distinguished soccer career, including playing for Manchester City.
Born in 1971, Kavelashvili is the founder of The Strength of the People, a movement that promoted laws against foreign influence and sexual minorities, which were criticized by the opposition for their similarity to regulations enacted in Russia.
The opposition, which has been holding daily protests in Tbilisi since the government froze negotiations to join the European Union on Nov. 28, gathered early in the morning outside the Parliament building.
“Slaves” and “Russians” were some of the slogans chanted by activists, who consider it an “insult” that the new head of state lacks higher education. To prevent incidents, police have closed off nearby streets used by lawmakers to access the legislature and have deployed water cannon trucks in the area.
The authorities altered the presidential election mechanism for this vote. For the first time, the president was not chosen by universal suffrage but through a collegiate vote involving 150 parliamentary deputies and 150 municipal delegates.
In addition to the parliamentary deputies—89 of whom belong to Georgian Dream—the electorate included 21 deputies from the Parliament of the Autonomous Region of Adjara, 20 representatives from the Supreme Council of Abkhazia in exile, and 109 municipal delegates.
Last night, Zurabishvili, president since 2018, reiterated that she would not relinquish the presidency. She called the election a “constitutional farce” and urged continued protests. According to the opposition leader, who deems Georgian Dream’s victory in the October legislative elections fraudulent, the country currently lacks a legitimate Parliament, and “an illegitimate Parliament cannot elect a new president.”
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
