Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili called the government illegitimate yesterday and said she would not leave office when her term ends next month, defying the prime minister as he accused pro-EU opposition forces of plotting revolution.
The South Caucasus country was thrown into crisis on Thursday, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream party said it was halting European Union accession talks for the next four years over what it called ‘blackmail’ of Georgia by the bloc, abruptly reversing a long-standing national goal.
EU membership is overwhelmingly popular in Georgia, which has the aim of joining the bloc enshrined in its constitution, and the sudden freezing of accession talks has triggered large protests in the mountainous country of 3.7 million people.
In an address yesterday, Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December, and that she would stay in post.
Zourabichvili and other government critics say an October 26 election, in which Georgian Dream won almost 54 per cent of the vote, was rigged, and that the parliament it elected is illegitimate. “There is no legitimate parliament, and therefore, an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration can take place, and my mandate continues until a legitimately elected parliament is formed,” she said.
Earlier, Kobakhidze accused opponents of the halt to EU accession of plotting a revolution, along the lines of Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protest, which toppled a pro-Russian president.
“Some people want a repeat of that scenario in Georgia. But there will be no Maidan in Georgia,” Kobakhidze said.
The country’s Interior Ministry said yesterday it had detained 107 people in the capital, Tbilisi, overnight during a protest which saw demonstrators build barricades along the central Rustaveli Avenue, and hurl fireworks at riot police, who used water cannon and teargas to disperse them.
Georgia’s domestic intelligence agency, the State Security Service, said ‘specific political parties’ were attempting to ‘overthrow the government by force’.
Many thousands of protesters gathered later yesterday in Tbilisi, building barricades outside parliament amid a large presence of riot police, and local media reported protests in towns and cities throughout the country.
Hundreds of employees at Georgia’s foreign, defence, justice and education ministries, and at the central bank, have signed open letters condemning the decision to freeze EU accession talks.
Major businesses, including the London-listed banks TBC Bank and Bank of Georgia stated their support for EU accession, while Georgia’s most senior diplomats in Italy and the Netherlands resigned in protest yesterday, local media reported.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, a star of Georgia’s national soccer team, spoke out in favour of the protesters.
“My country hurts, my people hurt – it’s painful and emotional to watch the videos that are circulating, stop the violence and aggression! Georgia deserves Europe today more than ever!” Kvaratskhelia wrote on Facebook yesterday.
Standing outside the parliament building in the capital, where the flags of the EU and Georgia hang side by side, protester Tina Kupreishvili said she wanted Georgia to uphold its constitutional commitment to joining the EU.
“The people of Georgia are trying to protect their constitution, trying to protect their country and the state, and they are trying to tell our government that rule of law means everything,” she told Reuters.
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