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Georgia shrugged aside objections from the European Union and elected former footballer and anti-West politician, Mikheil Kavelashvili, nominated by the ruling Georgian Dream party, as the new President on December 14, 2024. He was elected by an impressive 224 out of 300 deputies who comprised the electoral college under constitutional changes introduced in 2017, abolishing the president’s direct election. Mikheil Kavelashvili will have a five-year term.
In Romania, Bucharest-based lawyer Mocanu Ingrid Luciana posted on X (Twitter) on Dec 14, 2024, that “ordinary citizens are being picked up from the street by the police, like the most dangerous criminals, just because they posted on social media their indignation on what they believe about the annulment of the elections for the president of their country, denouncing the attempt to establish a dictatorship. It is exactly like in communism when citizens were sent to prison by the Securitate for the crime of conspiracy against the social order when they criticized the communist regime of Ceausescu.” However, the information could not be confirmed in the mainstream media at the time of writing.
Previously, on Dec 9, 2024, Luciana posted that judge Iuliana Scantei of the Constitutional Court that annulled the elections, was “appointed by the party of the Romanian president kept in office by the decision of the Court”, and promoted Kamala Harris on her Facebook page (meaning that she is aligned with the Globalists).
To return to Georgia, Mikheil Kavelashvili, who played for Manchester City, was the sole candidate because the opposition boycotted the election on the grounds that this would “legitimise the government.” The opposition has been boycotting parliament since the legislative elections of October 26 gave a decisive majority to the Georgian Dream party led by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze.
Former President Salome Zourabichvili denounced the new parliament as “unconstitutional”, and refused to vacate the presidential palace for the new President, Mikheil Kavelashvili. Zourabichvili said the Irakli Kobakhidze administration is “more or less the Russian regime of [Vladimir] Putin.” Supporting her stand, French President Emmanuel Macron who invited her to the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Dec 07, 2024, assured her supporters via video, “We are by your side in supporting your European and democratic aspirations.”
However, Georgian Prime Minister Kobakhidze was emphatic that Salome Zourabichvili will have to retire and leave her presidential office and residence following the inauguration of the new Head of State on December 29, 2024. He regretted that, “Salome Zourabichvili tried to harm the national interests of our country, especially in the last three years. This is a sad phenomenon when the president directly opposes the national interests of the country, although, thank God, Georgia was and remains. On December 29, her term of office will finally expire, and she will, of course, have to retire.” Kobakhidze said, “We have very strong state institutions, so we certainly have no difficulty in bringing the situation under full control.” His Party colleague Nino Tsilosani told reporters that the public no longer regards Zourabichvili as the president.
Washington, under the outgoing Biden administration, suspended the strategic partnership with Georgia and condemned the ruling party’s decision to freeze accession talks to the European Union until 2028. Washington imposed new sanctions on Georgian officials, barring visas for about 20 people accused of “undermining democracy in Georgia”, including ministers and parliamentarians.
There have been daily nightly rallies since the government declared on November 28 that it was freezing European Union accession talks. That goal was enshrined in the country’s constitution in 2017, and has caused concern in Georgia. The Prime Minister made the announcement hours after the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution rejecting Georgia’s parliamentary election results due to “significant irregularities” and calling for new elections within a year under international supervision; it called for sanctions on Georgian leaders, including Kobakhidze.
The other side of the story about the suspension of the adhesion process was given by Prime Minister Kobakhidze when he expressed resentment at the EU ambassador’s alleged interference in the country’s internal affairs, when the said diplomat directly joined the election campaign in support of the opposition. He said, “This is a serious violation of the Vienna Convention and democratic election principles… Pawel Herczynski, who announced before the elections that Georgia’s EU integration process was suspended, now states that the Georgian authorities actually suspended this process. For some time, we had refrained from giving diplomatic reactions to such events, but everything has its limits, and if we don’t see a change in behaviour, we will give diplomatic reactions to such facts in the future, including against the EU Ambassador and other relevant persons.”
Georgia was staunchly pro-Western for decades, but relations with the West soured in 2024, with Georgian Dream passing the foreign agents law and restricting LGBT rights (banning same-sex marriages and adoptions, etc) that have been dubbed as “draconian.” The ruling party tried to improve ties with Russia since the latter’s special military operation in Ukraine in 2022. Two breakaway Georgian regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, declared independence under Russia’s protection after a five-day war in 2008.
On Dec 08, 2024, former US House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, held a joint press conference in Tbilisi with a little-known “interim” President of Georgia, Juanli Guaidoschvilli. Even Wikipedia is silent about his background.
Meanwhile, intrigued by the attitude of outgoing president Salome Zourabichvili, a Twitter (now X) user probed her background and found that her maternal grandfather, Michael Kedia, headed the Georgian desk for the Third Reich’s Security Main Office (RSHA) and worked under Reinhard Heydrich, chief lieutenant of Heinrich Himmler. This fits in well with the Globalist choice of leaders for countries under their influence.
Declassified CIA files on Michel Kedia include a record of activities directed against the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s. A member of the Georgian National Committee, Kedia emigrated to France and cooperated with German intelligence during World War II. In 1942-43, as chief of the Georgian desk for the RSHA’s Operation Zeppelin, he recruited POWs from the Caucasus and others in his Georgian organisation for German parachute landing operations in the Caucasus behind the Soviet lines. In 1943 he journeyed to Turkey to organize uprisings in the Turkish and Caucasian frontier regions. In mid-1944, as Germany’s defeat loomed, he tried to contact the Allies to offer his services. He claimed to have saved the lives of some Jews in France. He escaped to Geneva in the last months of the war and offered his services to the United States, but was rebuffed.
Following his decision to suspend negotiations with the EU until 2028, Kobakhidze announced that Georgia will not accept budget grants from the EU in this period. He complained that the EU has damaged Georgia’s reputation by using admission negotiations as a tool for manipulation, and stated that his decisions will help avoid such interference. Asserting that Georgia could enrich the EU with its culture and potential, and vice versa, he said Georgia must show European bureaucrats that they should talk to his country “not with blackmail and insults, but with dignity.”
At a press conference on December 02, 2024, Kobakhidze alleged that the demonstrations against his government were “violent” and “a product of foreign interference.” He claimed that some of the protesters are foreign nationals, and that the opposition is trying to create a situation similar to Ukraine’s pro-EU Maidan Square demonstrations in 2014, following which Russia annexed Crimea. However, he said his government is committed to joining the EU, and will strive for “full membership in the EU by 2030.”
In response to the opposition’s boycott of parliament, the new President Kavelashvili declared that his People’s Power Party will leave the ruling coalition and function as a “healthy opposition” in parliament, to take the space vacated by the “so-called radical opposition funded by foreign forces.”
Guram Macharashvili, MP from the People’s Power party, told the media that what was happening in the country was an “artificially created crisis characterised by the influence of foreign powers”. Macharashvili and (the now President) Kavelashvili drafted Georgia’s controversial “foreign agents” law in May 2024. That law is described by the opposition as ‘Russian-style legislation’. The law requires organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from overseas to register as agents of foreign influence; there are heavy fines for violations.
References:
1] Georgia installs former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili as new president, Al Jazeera, Dec 14, 2024.
2] https://x.com/Ingrid_Mocanu/status/1867709327550652520
3] https://x.com/Ingrid_Mocanu/status/1866054188826038408
4] Georgian president declares she will not give up presidency, TASS, Dec 13, 2024.
https://tass.com/world/1887213
5] Zurabishvili will have to retire – Kobakhidze, Armen Press, Dec 14, 2024.
https://armenpress.am/en/article/1207481
6] Georgia protests: What’s behind them and what’s next?, Al Jazeera, Dec 03, 2024.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/3/georgia-protests-whats-behind-them-and-whats-next
7] PM: Diplomatic measures will be taken if EU ambassador doesn’t stop interfering in Georgia’s internal affairs, Report News Agency, November 29, 2024
8] Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (RG 263), April, 2001.
https://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/rg-263-report.html
9] Lawmakers in Georgia elect a hardline critic of the West as new president, Reuters, Dec 14, 2024.
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