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

Salome Zurabishvili has said she does not recognize the Saturday parliamentary election results she blamed on Russia.

Georgia’s president, Salome Zurabishvili, does not recognize the national parliamentary election results and called on people to join protests against it. The elections were held in Georgia on Saturday. According to the official results, the ruling Georgian Dream party received almost 54% of the vote, while various opposition forces attracted between 11% and 3%.

Earlier, the president claimed that the vote was won by what she called “European Georgia,” and 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 the Georgian Dream of what they called “stealing the European future” of Georgia and even supposedly staging a “constitutional coup.”

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

Zurabishvili 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 the 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 previously worked for the French Foreign Ministry for many years, including as France’s ambassador to Georgia, before getting Georgian citizenship in 2004 and being quickly promoted to the position of the nation’s top diplomat. She then held this post for about a year.

“I did not come to this country for this,” Zurabishvili stated, referring to the election results, which equaled “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, Zurabishvili also supported other protests in Georgia, including against the ‘foreign agents’ and “LGBT propaganda’ laws she branded as “Russian-style.”

During the briefing, the president also appealed to foreign nations, calling on them to “protect Georgia” and “geopolitical balance in this region” by not establishing any ties with a new Georgian government. Under the Georgian laws, a simple 76-strong majority is needed in Georgia to pick the next prime minister and cabinet. According to the 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 Zurabishvili’s statements, Mdinaradze also said that “Georgia no longer has a president. Georgia has an agent, a leader of the radical opposition.”