Georgia lawmakers elect Western critic as new President

Mikheil Kavelashvili, the new President of Georgia.

Georgian lawmakers elected Mikheil Kavelashvili, a hardline critic of the West, as president on Saturday, setting him up to replace a pro-Western incumbent amid major protests against the government over a halt to the country’s European Union accession talks last month, Reuters reports.

Kavelashvili, a former professional soccer player, has strongly anti-Western views. In public speeches this year, he has repeatedly alleged that Western intelligence agencies are seeking to drive Georgia into war with Russia.

Georgian presidents are picked by a college of electors composed of MPs and representatives of local government. Of 225 electors present, 224 voted for Kavelashvili, who was the only candidate nominated.

All opposition parties have boycotted parliament since an October election in which official results gave Georgian Dream almost 54% of the vote, but which the opposition say was fraudulent.

Kavelashvili is a leader of People’s Power, an anti-Western splinter group of the ruling party, and was a co-author of a law on “foreign agents” that requires organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from overseas to register as agents of foreign influence, and imposes heavy fines for violations.

Outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of the ruling Georgian Dream party, has positioned herself as a leader of the protest movement and has said she will remain president after her term ends. She considers parliament illegitimate as a result of alleged fraud in the October election.

Opposition parties have said they will continue to regard Zourabichvili as the legitimate president, even after Kavelashvili is inaugurated on Dec. 29.

Georgia had been seen for decades as one of the most pro-Western and democratic of the Soviet Union’s successor states, but relations with the West have soured this year, with Georgian Dream forcing through laws on foreign agents and LGBT (banned in Russia) rights.

Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied outside parliament nightly for more than two weeks. Some have hurled fireworks at police, who have used water cannon and tear gas to break up demonstrations.

The government has repeatedly said the protests represent an attempt to stage a violent seizure of power.

Georgia's interior ministry has said that more than 150 officers have been injured during the protests.

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