On December 14, the Electoral College elected Mikheil Kavelashvili as Georgia's new president. For the first time, the country's leaders were not elected by direct vote.
Kavelashvili, from the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party, received 224 votes, with 300 electors taking part in the vote. Protests in Georgia have been ongoing for months. In May, citizens took to the streets to protest after parliament passed a law on foreign agents and subsequently opposed Georgian Dream's victory in parliamentary elections. Now, the day before Kavelashvili is sworn into office, protesters have once again come out in droves to show their opposition.
Georgia. On the eve of the inauguration of the new president, large-scale protests occur in the country.
Thousands of people who disagree with the change in Georgia's leadership took to the streets in cities across the country. They gathered along the Kura River in central Tbilisi, joining hands and forming a kilometers-long human chain as a sign of support for European Union membership. Demonstrators waved Georgian and EU flags and also held banners with slogans calling for, among other things: release political prisoners;
An AFP reporter reported that one of the banners read: “We demand new elections.” “Everyone needs to understand that the protests will not stop until all demands are met,” said a 23-year-old student who was participating in the demonstration.
Meanwhile, 26-year-old Akil admitted in an interview with the Polish News Agency that he regularly holds demonstrations to express his dissatisfaction with the Georgian Dream policy. – I will stand in front of Congress until something changes. One month, two months, he said.
President Salome Zurabishvili and government officials also took part in the protest on Tbilisi's Saarbrücken Bridge. She was accompanied by KO lawmaker Michał Walikiewicz and Lithuanian lawmaker Dainius Limas, as well as representatives of the opposition coalition Strong Georgia, PAP reported. In total, protests were held in 17 Georgian cities.
Georgia. The opposition party does not recognize the election. Zurabishvili: I will remain president
Michał Wawrykiewicz summed up Saturday's protests and a series of meetings with Zurabishvili, emphasizing above all that neither society nor the president will give up. “The usurpers, Putin's allies, want to impose authoritarianism tomorrow by imprisoning their 'president' and even announcing the arrest of Salome Zurabishvili. ' he added.
Georgia's current president stressed on a podcast Friday that “the election, and by extension the inauguration, are invalid.” – I will remain president and continue my work. This is something everyone should know, she said. Therefore, she reiterated her claim that the opposition does not recognize the victory of the Georgian Dream.
Additionally, the United States on Friday imposed sanctions on ruling party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili following tensions in Tbilisi and the failure to recognize the results of the country's presidential election. “His and Georgian Dream's actions undermined democratic institutions, enabled human rights violations, and restricted the exercise of fundamental freedoms in Georgia,” the US State Department's official statement said.
Additionally, U.S. officials said, these actions “derailed Georgia's Euro-Atlantic future, which the Georgian people overwhelmingly desire and which the Georgian Constitution mandates.”
Meanwhile, Congressman Joe Wilson, chairman of the Helsinki Committee, invited Salome Zurabishvili to President Donald Trump's inauguration in January. “I thanked and invited President Zurabishvili as the only legitimate leader of Georgia. I was impressed by her courage in the face of attacks by Ivanishvili and her friends in the Chinese and Iranian regimes,” he said online. I wrote it.
Source: AFP, Politico, PAP
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