Showdown in Georgia

On 29 December, the mandate of President Salome Zurabišvili expires. She supports the popular protests that have been going on for three weeks against fraud in the elections won by the Georgian Dream, which has ‘frozen’ the European integration project. He is calling for new elections to be called by then, while Prime Minister Iraklij Kobakhidze is threatening to open criminal proceedings against him.

Tbilisi (AsiaNews) - On December 29, almost on the eve of the New Year, the outgoing President of Georgia, Salome Zurabišvili, will end her term in office and is expected to hand over the Orbeliani Palace in Tbilisi to her successor Mikhail Kavelašvili, the former footballer elected by the committee controlled by the Georgian Dream party. Considering his appointment and the results of the parliamentary elections to be illegitimate, Zurabišvili demanded that the government call new elections on that date, declaring this in front of protesters who continue to fill the capital's squares.

In her speech, the president said that ‘the protests are moving into a new phase’, and that the country's political crisis can only be resolved by returning to giving the people their say without cheating and falsification. Prime Minister Iraklij Kobakhidze threatened Zurabišvili with criminal proceedings against him for abuse of power in announcing new elections and refusing to leave the presidential palace. He added that ‘no one wants to send the 72-year-old president to prison’, and therefore trusts in her ‘common sense’, but she herself replied that she ‘has no fear of ending up behind bars’, without clarifying what exactly she intends to do if the government does not heed her appeals.

Protests against the ruling regime's representatives' declarations to “freeze European integration” have been going on uninterruptedly for more than three weeks. In the first few days there were repressions by the security forces that dispersed the demonstrators, with hundreds of arrests and injuries, but later the actions of force became increasingly relaxed, the demonstrations became less intense and more numerous, and nevertheless hundreds and even thousands of people gather every day on the central Rustaveli prospekt. The only disruptive action at the time of Zurabišvili's speech was tampering with the sound system, trying to make it impossible to hear her words.

Foreign Minister Maka Bočorišvili also spoke out against the president, stating that ‘her demand for new elections is devoid of any legitimacy and basis’, and that ‘Salome Zurabišvili is not interested in legal and constitutional grounds when it comes to acting against the interests of her own people’. The president responded by inviting her to the Orbeliani palace together with the patron of the Georgian Dream, the oligarch Bidzina Ivanišvili, and ‘all those who care that there is a positive future for Georgia’.

Zurabišvili herself disclosed the European Council's decision to lift the visa regime for Georgians holding diplomatic passports, a restriction ‘that does not affect all other citizens of Georgia’. The United States also lengthens the list of sanctioned persons, including the Georgian Minister of the Interior, Vakhtang Gomelauri, and several representatives of law-enforcement structures, prompting protests from the Georgian Dream, which cries ‘world conspiracy’, expecting a relaxation of relations after the inauguration of Donald Trump's presidency.

In the heightening fear of a possible civil war, many look to the Georgian Orthodox Church, which acted as a mediator in the clashes between the different factions in the early 1990s. The almost 92-year-old patriarch Ilja II had called on all priests before the elections to ‘refrain from any statements related to politics’, trying to maintain absolute neutrality, but the positions of several clergymen clearly tend towards the ruling regime, especially in the ‘fight against LGBT ideology’ and resistance to European integration. Now the Patriarch has called on all parties ‘to reach a constructive dialogue, to avoid uncontrollable processes in society’, and congratulating the winners of the elections, he has invited everyone, including the opposition, to ‘achieve genuine synergy for the good of the country’. Some demonstrators displayed provocative placards, calling on the patriarch to take to the streets to assert his moral authority in the face of the ‘prevaricators of the will of the people’, but Ilya II replied that ‘one must trust in the will of God’.

• Georgia
• Georgian Dream
• Europe
• Zurabišvili
• Kobakhidze