Former Manchester City footballer, former MP of the ruling Georgian Dream party and hardline critic of the West Mikhail Kavelashvili was elected president on Saturday, the 14th of December, amid 17 days of anti-government protests that began after the ruling Georgian Dream party suspended Georgia’s European Union (EU) accession process until 2028, report the BBC and Reuters.
Large crowds of protesters gathered outside parliament early on Saturday morning ahead of the vote. Some played football in the street outside and waved red cards in front of the parliament building, mocking Kavalashvili’s career in sport.
Georgian presidents are chosen by an electoral college made up of members of parliament and representatives of local governments. Of the 225 representatives present, 224 voted in favour of Kavelashvili, who was the only candidate put forward. Since the October elections, all opposition parties have boycotted parliamentary proceedings.
Kavelashvili, a former professional footballer, has strong anti-Western, often conspiratorial views. In public speeches this year, he has repeatedly claimed that Western intelligence services are trying to get Georgia involved in the war with Russia, which ruled Georgia for 200 years until 1991.
Kavelashvili is the leader of the anti-Western People Power party and co-author of the law on “foreign agents”.
Protester Vezi Kokhodze described the vote as a “betrayal” of what he called Georgians’ desire to integrate into the West.
“Today’s election shows the clear desire of the system to return Georgia to its Soviet roots”, he said.
Since the 28th of November, every evening the main avenue outside the Parliament has been filled with protesters adorned with EU flags, protesting against the Georgian Dream’s announcement to postpone EU accession negotiations until 2028.
The outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili has positioned herself as the leader of the protest movement and has announced that she will remain President after her term of office.
Shortly before the vote, Zourabichvili declared in a post on X that the election of her successor was a “mockery of democracy”.
Opposition parties have stated that they will continue to regard Zourabichvili as a legitimate President even after Kavelashvili is inaugurated on the 29th of December.
In a post-vote briefing, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze congratulated Kavelashvili and called the outgoing President an “agent of foreign powers”.
Georgia was for decades considered one of the most pro-Western and democratic successors to the Soviet Union, but this year relations with the West have deteriorated with the Georgian Dream passing laws on foreign agents and LGBT rights.
Western countries have raised the alarm over Georgia’s apparent foreign policy shift and authoritarianism, with the EU threatening sanctions and the US already imposing visa restrictions over the crackdown on protests, during which hundreds of people have been arrested.
According to Transparency International, more than 460 people have been detained in protests across Georgia in the last two weeks. More than 300 of them, including dozens of Georgian media representatives, have been subjected to ill-treatment or torture, according to the organisation.