TBILISI - Protesters rallied in Georgia’s capital for a fourth straight night on Sunday and there were signs that opposition was spreading across the country to the government’s decision to suspend talks on joining the European Union.
The country of 3.7 million people has seen months of rising tension between the ruling Georgian Dream party and opponents who accuse it of pursuing increasingly authoritarian, anti-Western and pro-Russian policies. Whereas, Georgia’s Prime Minister on Sunday ruled out new parliamentary elections amid a post-election crisis that has seen his legitimacy questioned both at home and internationally. The Black Sea nation has been rocked by turmoil since the governing Georgian Dream party claimed victory in an October 26 parliamentary election that the pro-European opposition said was fraudulent. The opposition is boycotting the new parliament, while pro-EU President Salome Zurabishvili has sought to annul the election result through the country’s constitutional court, declaring the new legislature and government “illegitimate”.
Thousands have taken to the streets to protest alleged electoral fraud as well as the government’s decision on Thursday to shelve talks on joining the European Union until 2028. When asked whether Georgian Dream would agree to hold a new ballot, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told journalists: “Of course not.”
“The formation of the new government based on the October 26 parliamentary elections has been completed,” he said. Critics accuse Georgian Dream, in power for more than a decade, of having steered the country away from the EU in recent years and of moving closer to Russia, an accusation it denies. Earlier this week, the party nominated far-right former football international Mikheil Kavelashvili for the largely ceremonial post of president. Under constitutional changes pushed through by Georgian Dream in 2017, the president will for the first time be chosen by an electoral college instead of a popular vote. But Zurabishvili told AFP in an exclusive interview on Saturday that she would not step down until last month’s contested parliamentary elections are re-run.