Georgia’s pro-Western president calls for mass street protests

Salome Zourabichvili has said she does not recognize the Saturday parliamentary election results and alleged that Russia was involved

Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili has announced that she does not recognize the results of Saturday’s national parliamentary election and has called on people to join protests against it. According to official results, the ruling Georgian Dream party received almost 54% of the vote, while various opposition forces managed to garner between 11% and 3%.

Earlier, the president claimed that the vote had been won by what she called “European Georgia,” despite alleged “attempts to rig elections.” On Sunday, she held a series of meetings with various opposition parties.

Several pro-Western opposition forces, including the Unity-National Movement (UNM) and ‘Coalition for Change’ announced on the same day that they would not be joining the new parliament, as they did not recognize the vote results either. The parties’ leaders accused Georgian Dream of “stealing the European future” of the country and even supposedly staging a “constitutional coup.”

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UNM head Tina Bokuchava also vowed to “fight like never before” to reverse the election results and called the meeting with Zourabichvili “very important.” The president herself called what was described as an “emergency briefing,” where she announced her decision not to recognize the voting results.

Zourabichvili blasted the vote as “total fraud” and branded it “Russian elections.” According to the president, Georgia had become “victim of a Russian special operation, a new form of hybrid warfare, which was carried out against our people, … our country.”

The president also declared herself to be “the only independent institution left in this state.” She then called on her fellow Georgians to join protests on Monday evening “to show… the world that we do not recognize this election.”

The politician was born in Paris and worked for the French Foreign Ministry for many years, including as France’s ambassador to Georgia, before getting citizenship in the country in 2004 and being quickly promoted to the position of the nation’s top diplomat, a post she held for about a year.

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“I did not come to this country for this,” Zourabichvili stated, referring to the election results, which she equated with “Georgia’s submission to Russia.” 

“I am not one person, I am an institution that represents the population, and I want to … tell them that we must stand together and declare that we do not recognize these elections,” the president said.

Previously, Zourabichvili has also supported other protests in Georgia, including against ‘foreign agents’ and “LGBT propaganda’ laws she branded as “Russian-style.”

During the briefing, the president appealed to foreign nations, calling on them to “protect Georgia” and the “geopolitical balance in this region” by not establishing any ties with the new government.

Under Georgian law, a simple 76-strong majority is needed to pick the next prime minister and cabinet. According to Georgian Dream chairman Mamuka Mdinaradze, his party could get as many as 90 of the national chamber’s 150 seats after the vote.

Commenting on Zourabichvili’s statements, Mdinaradze also said that “Georgia no longer has a president. Georgia has an agent, a leader of the radical opposition.”