Pro-EU critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party say they will not leave power next month because they were fraudulently elected to parliament.
Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili has said she will not leave office when her term ends because parliament is “illegitimate”, but the prime minister has warned against a “revolution” amid pro-European Union protests.
Thousands of Georgians protested for a third straight night on Saturday after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced a new government. Freezes negotiations on EU accession.
The goal of joining 27-members is now enshrined in the Constitution of Georgia, but the Prime Minister – who Building closer ties with Russia – stalled talks for four years and accused Brussels of “blackmail”.
In a speech on Saturday, Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of the ruling Georgian Dream party, said parliament did not have the right to choose his successor when his term ends in December and that he would remain in office.
The president, whose powers are largely ceremonial, maintains that Georgian Dream won the country’s October 26 election with 54 percent of the vote. It was a fraud and thus renders an elected parliament illegitimate.
“There is no legitimate parliament, so the illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, there will be no inauguration and my mandate will continue until a legally elected parliament is formed,” he said.
Georgia’s Election Commission earlier this month He confirmed the ruling party as the winnerBut watchdogs and politicians in the EU and the United States have indicated that an investigation into the potential fraud is needed.
The country’s interior ministry said Saturday that 107 people were arrested overnight in the capital Tbilisi during protests that saw some protesters erect barricades and throw fireworks at riot police who used water cannons and tear gas.
The unrest came as opponents accused the government’s move to halt EU accession talks as plotting a revolution, similar to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protests that ousted a pro-Russian president.
“In Georgia, the situation on the ground cannot be realized. Georgia is a state, and the state does not allow this,” Kobakhidze was quoted as saying by local media.
The US State Department said on Saturday that it has suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia following the Georgian Dream Party’s decision to suspend its accession to the EU.
“We condemn the excessive force against Georgians who have legitimately protested this betrayal of their constitution – the EU is a bulwark against the Kremlin,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller wrote in X.
“Therefore we have suspended our strategic partnership with Georgia.”
Georgia gained independence from neighboring Russia in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the two countries have had no diplomatic relations since a brief 2008 war over the Moscow-backed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
But efforts by the Georgian Dream party to build closer ties with Russia have already stalled the country’s application to join the EU.
Laws against “foreign agents” and LGBTQ rights are among the main reasons behind the curtailment of human rights, and the legislation is modeled on Russia, the bloc said.
