Candidate with anti-Western positions Mikhail Kavelashvili is elected president of Georgia | EUROtoday

Lhe results of the presidential election was not a suspenseful vote. This Saturday, December 14, in Georgia, Parliament elected Mikhail Kavelashvili, identified for his anti-Western positions, president of the nation, whereas main demonstrations adopted the tip of the nation’s accession negotiations to the European Union (EU). ). The determination of the ruling get together, the Georgian Dream, final November to freeze the method of Georgia’s accession to the EU till 2028, thus abruptly interrupted a long-standing goal enshrined within the nation’s Constitution, sparking on the identical time a basic anger, expressed specifically in opinion polls, which present that the request for membership within the EU is extensively supported by Georgians.

While Georgian presidents are elected by a university of electors composed of each deputies and representatives of the authorized authorities, Mikhail Kavelashvili, the one candidate within the working, obtained 224 votes out of the 225 voters current. Since the final elections in October, the outcomes of which gave almost 54% of the votes to the ruling get together, the Georgian Dream, in a vote that the opposition events denounced as fraudulent, the latter have boycotted Parliament .

Former footballer with conspiracy views

Known to most people as a former skilled soccer participant, Mikhail Kavelashvili can be talked about for his very anti-Western and sometimes conspiratorial positions. In his speeches, the one candidate for the submit of president this yr asserted that Western intelligence companies have been attempting to push Georgia into battle with Russia. The election of the ex-footballer, nominated by Bidzina Ivanishvili – a billionaire former prime minister thought-about the nation’s de facto chief – to run for the presidency, an primarily honorary place, aroused the discontent of a giant a part of the inhabitants. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in entrance of the Georgian Parliament earlier than the vote: some performed soccer on the street whereas others brandished purple playing cards in reference to Mikhail Kavelashvili’s sporting profession.

Salomé Zourabichvili, the pro-European outgoing president and critic of the ruling Georgian Dream get together, has positioned herself because the chief of the protest motion and has made it identified that she’s going to stay in her submit after the tip of her mandate. The latter in actual fact considers that Parliament is illegitimate as a result of alleged fraud throughout the October elections. At the identical time, the opposition events declared for his or her half that they might proceed to think about Salomé Zourabichvili because the official president, even after the inauguration of Mikhail Kavelashvili scheduled for December 29.

Increasingly tense relations with the West

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Relations between Georgia, seen for many years as probably the most pro-Western and democratic former Soviet Union international locations, and the West have deteriorated this yr because the Georgian Dream imposed legal guidelines on international brokers and LGBT rights that opponents say are Russian-inspired.

Faced with the obvious reorientation of the nation’s international coverage and its authoritarian drift, a number of Western international locations didn’t hesitate to sound the alarm, and the European Union even threatened to sanction the repression of demonstrators. In a video addressed to Georgians on the sidelines of the Parliament vote and revealed on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that “Georgia’s European dream must not die”.