Salome Zurabishvili Signals Readiness for Second Presidential Term
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili told the French newspaper Le Figaro that she is “ready to take on a great responsibility, including the [presidential] second term, for Georgia to return to the European path.” The President’s term ends in December. From now on, the President won’t be elected by popular vote, but by Parliament (the 300-member electoral college made up of MPs and local and regional authorities), as introduced in the 2017 constitutional amendments.
In an interview with Le Figaro, the Georgian President spoke about the upcoming parliamentary elections and their expected outcome. She said that “we have to be ready for anything” from the government, “the machinations,” such as creating obstacles for Georgians abroad to vote, as well as using administrative resources and propaganda on the war or the LGBT issue. She cited the polls and estimated that the ruling party “will get no more than 25 percent.”
Zurabishvili said the pro-Western opposition will win the October elections. She spoke about the opposition noting that it “cannot be united given the recent past, but it can be consolidated enough around the European idea to get the 50 or 60 percent of votes,” Zurabishvili said.
She spoke about the “foreign agents” law stressing that it hasn’t been called “Russian law” for nothing, as it was with this law that Putin subjugated Russian civil society. She also stated that Georgian government is trying to “cut the country off from Europe” and make it a “Russian protectorate”.
Asked how France and the EU could help Georgia, the President said: “They should say and reiterate that what the Georgian government is doing is contrary to the European path.” She said she was “not very much in favor of sanctions” noting they could be badly interpreted by the population, and adding that “it does not exclude the announcement of what will happen after the elections, if the pro-Russian orientation is confirmed”.
The President stressed that the upcoming elections will be tantamount to a referendum on Georgia’s European future.
“There is a very clear decision by the Georgian government to move closer to Moscow,” Zurabishvili said, adding that this became especially clear after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She also pointed out that Georgian politics is currently led by GD honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili, whom she called an “oligarch”. She said that Ivanishvili’s interests with Moscow are “the most opaque.”
“Georgia is facing an existential choice – to follow its European destiny with the parliamentary elections on October 26, or to return to the service of Russia, under a regime modeled on Putin’s regime,” President said.
NOTE: The quotes in news article are a double translation from the Georgian version of the original French interview.
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