Photo Story | Day 17 of Protests in Georgia

December 14, the 17th day of protests in Georgia was marked by the first snow, the one-year anniversary of EU granting Georgia candidate status and the election of a new president, former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili. Crowds began to gather at the parliament in the early hours of the morning as the electoral college, made up of the all- GD member parliament and local councils, voted (all but one) for Kavelashvili, who had been nominated by GD honorary chair Bidzina Ivanishvili and was the only candidate. He is the first Georgian president not to have been elected by popular vote, and his election has been protested as illegitimate.

The election took place against the backdrop of a protest rally in front of the Parliament building, with smaller rallies in different parts of the city, such as the Mothers’ March or the Mountaineers’ March, all converging on the main destination – Rustaveli Avenue. With temperatures near freezing during the day, the crowd resorted to physical exercise to keep warm, shooting balls and playing football down Rustaveli Avenue. Or maybe this was in reference to Mikheil Kavelashvili’s football background. Meanwhile, the workers prepared a stage for the Christmas tree lighting event announced by the mayor on Rustaveli Avenue with a mobilization of GD supporters and a big police mobilization at the venue to stand between them and the demonstrators. However, the demonstrators refused to back down and stood their ground peacefully, occasionally booing to express their outrage at the plans to light the tree at the site of more than two weeks of brutal beatings of demonstrators. President Salome Zurabishvili came to the protesters, who greeted her with chants: “Thank you!” The authorities eventually postponed the lighting of the tree, claiming that “radical opposition” had occupied the site.

Civil.ge‘s Guram Muradov captured memorable moments of the day:

More to follow…

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