Georgia’s pro-Russian Georgian Dream party tightened its hold on the country when its lawmakers elected Mikheil Kavelashvili to be the country’s new president. Protesters against the government flooded the capital, Tbilisi, in response.
Kavelashvili, a former football player for Manchester City in the UK and then an MP for Georgian Dream, was the sole candidate. Since 2017, the president has been chosen by an electoral college comprised of lawmakers and local representatives. With most of them hailing from Georgian Dream, Kavelashvili’s victory was assured. He would replace Salome Zourabichvili, the pro-EU incumbent and staunch critic of the Georgian Dream government.
“The appointment of Kavelashvili as president marks a dangerous new chapter in Georgia’s political crisis,” Elene Kintsurashvili, a program coordinator at the German Marshall Fund, told The Parliament. “Conducted by an illegitimate parliament formed after rigged elections, this move is not only unconstitutional but also a blatant attempt to tighten Georgian Dream’s grip on power.”
The opposition, which in protest refused to put a candidate forward, dismissed Saturday’s election as “illegitimate” and view Zourabichvili as the rightful president. She has vowed to stay in her position until new parliamentary elections are held.
Addressing EU lawmakers in person in Strasbourg on Wednesday, she criticised the EU for falling short on backing Georgia’s democratic aspirations to join the bloc.
“Europe has so far only met the challenge halfway. It has been slow to wake up and slow to react,” she said. “Much more could and should be done.”
On the edge of democratic abyss
With two presidents now claiming the role, Georgia faces a constitutional crisis. The country has been falling deeper into crisis since earlier this year, when Georgian Dream passed laws threatening civil society and media freedom. That led to the EU’s suspension of accession talks, which began only months earlier. In a twist, it was Georgian Dream that applied for EU membership in the first place, only to now be tilting back into Russian influence.
The Georgian public is overwhelmingly in favour of joining the EU, while Russian forces have occupied two of the country’s regions since a brief war in 2008.
Following its claim to winning the disputed parliamentary election on 26 October, the party went ahead to push off any talk of joining the EU for at least four years. That sparked new waves of widespread protests. Police have detained an increasing number of people, including members of the opposition, as the crackdown on anti-government protests intensifies.
“By making Kavelashvili president, the Georgian Dream party indicates it’s not interested in revitalising relations with the EU,” Teona Lavrelashvili, a policy researcher with the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in Brussels, told The Parliament.
Kavelashvili hails from the most far-right, pro-Russian wing of Georgian Dream. Although the president is a largely ceremonial post, who fills it can be a reflection of the country’s direction. He has accused Georgia’s pro-EU factions of trying to drag the country into further war with Russia, calling EU membership a “mousetrap.”
Opposition parties consider Kavelashvili a pawn of Bidzina Ivanishvili, a wealthy oligarch who founded Georgian Dream. Ivanishvili called Kavelashvili “an upright patriot” when he was nominated for president.
“This is a political coup, under the guise of false elections,” Jelger Groeneveld, a Delft-based Georgia observer who runs the blog East Watch, told The Parliament.
EU hesitation
The European Parliament has called for a re-run of the October vote, considering it illegitimate. But Georgia’s opposition is expecting more bite from the EU. Following Kavelashvili's election, the four largest opposition parties sent a letter to the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, and the bloc’s foreign ministers, urging them to declare the ruling government illegitimate.
“The EU must issue strong and unequivocal statements denouncing Kavelashvili’s appointment as illegitimate and recognize Salome Zourabichvili as Georgia’s legitimate president until free elections are conducted,” GMF’s Kintsurashvili said.
Zurabishvili had already called on European countries to send "a very clear message" in response to the violence against protesters, saying support from the West is "the only political way out of the crisis.”
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have been among the most outspoken EU members on the issue, have levied sanctions against Georgian officials. The move put pressure on the EU to follow up with coordinated sanctions, which Brussels has so far resisted.
On Monday, EU foreign ministers agreed to suspend visa-free travel for Georgian officials with diplomatic passports, a move many in Georgia were waiting for but many observers consider insufficient to change Tbilisi’s tune.
EU foreign policy decisions require unanimous consent, which makes tougher action unlikely. Hungary and Slovakia, whose leaders have closer ties to Russia, vetoed broader sanctions.
“The protesters and opposition feel that there is a lack of urgency in the international community,” Groeneveld said.