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Georgia inaugurates far-right ruling party loyalist as new president
FRANCE 24 English
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12/29/2024
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00:00
For more on this story, we can bring in Maryam Tosadze, a security and program advisor of
00:05
Georgian Centre for Strategy and Development. Thank you very much for speaking to us on France24.
00:12
Hello, thank you so much for having me.
00:14
Zurabishvili then maintains that she's the only legitimate president. So what happens next?
00:23
Yes, Salome Zurabishvili does maintain that she remains the only legitimate authority in
00:29
the country, which means that she's the only authority that has been elected through a
00:33
legitimate process of elections. The installing of the new president happened under the
00:42
circumstances of near absence, I would say, of legitimacy of the parliament, which was then
00:48
tasked with installing the new president. I mean, the new president was, and I'm using the word
00:54
installed strategically, because this was not an election. He ran as a sole candidate and was
01:00
essentially installed by his friends within the one party parliament. So the parliament itself
01:06
lacks legitimacy, lacks recognition from both the internal audience as well as the international
01:11
audience, which then sort of by extension means that the candidate imposed by or installed by
01:17
that parliament lacks legitimacy. So what happens next is a logical question. And this is something
01:23
that the outgoing president Salome Zurabishvili tried to cover in her remarks earlier today in
01:29
front of the presidential palace. She indicated that once again, that this will be a long process
01:35
of resistance and that she will now move to sort of the side of the people and she will continue to
01:43
fight along with the people. It's again, it's a long process and it will require a lot of leadership
01:49
from her, from other political leaders as well. But one thing I think that everyone is preparing
01:54
for is a long process of resistance. You mentioned it just there about how Kevin
02:01
Ashfordly was installed. That's because the Georgian Dream Party abolished the use of
02:06
popular votes to elect the president in 2017 changes to the constitution. Can you tell us
02:13
a little bit more about that? Of course. I mean, the reduction of the presidential power has been
02:19
a sort of a gradual thing in Georgia, which has its explanations and it has its reasons. There's
02:26
historical sort of experience that we've had with the presidency in this country. So that's one
02:30
thing. And then this year was the first time ever that the president of Georgia was to be elected by
02:37
a specially designated body that was essentially formed by, is supposed to be formed
02:44
by the members of the parliament as well as other institutions. But the parliament in itself is
02:49
supposed to be a representative body, which is unlike what we have today, which is a single party
02:56
institution. The candidate that was nominated and now installed was, I mean, honestly, as a
03:04
citizen of this country, it breaks my heart that I have to say this now, but this man was selected
03:10
for one quality and one quality only, which is essentially loyalty to the regime, loyalty to the
03:18
to Bedina Ivernashvili. We understand that constitutionally speaking, the president does
03:23
not hold that much of a power, but at the same time, within the limited powers that the president
03:28
could exercise for the benefit of the democratic process in Georgia, with this man in this position,
03:37
we have essentially no expectation that he will ever even dream of ever going against the
03:45
general sort of party will and the party will directed by the Bedina Ivernashvili.
03:52
Right. And we can see that on the screen. I mean, protesters have taken to the presidential palace
03:57
this Sunday and protests in general have shown no sign of letting up in all of this. We've
04:04
already heard of accounts of beatings on opposition politicians and journalists.
04:08
So can we expect a wider crackdown if these demonstrations continue?
04:14
That's a great question. I mean, in some ways, I think, well, first and foremost, yes, the protest
04:19
is very active and nobody intends to go home anytime soon. I mean, these people protesting
04:26
they have been out there for a month now. It's been the weather conditions have been horrible
04:31
and nothing seems to scare the people, not even the water cannons, not even the bullet,
04:37
the rubber bullets, no gas, nothing, no pepper spray seems to be scaring them.
04:42
It's a commitment that these people have made to the democratic process in this country,
04:47
which then means that not many things can scare you when that's what you are defending, essentially.
04:54
We did see a number of violent acts. I mean, the way the protests, the peaceful protests,
05:00
were dispersed in and of itself, that was extremely, extremely problematic.
05:05
And then you had, as you mentioned, a crackdown on not just on the opposition leaders and the
05:10
politicians and, of course, the media, which is a terrible, terrible problem in itself.
05:14
But we also have the unfair arrests of the participants of the protest who, in many cases,
05:21
had absolutely nothing to do, or very little to do, with even what you could remotely call
05:26
violence during the protest. So what can we expect? I mean, a number of us, I think, expect a
05:34
little more authoritarianism, especially in the face of the newly imposed sanctions on Bedina
05:42
Ivano-Shvili. It seems to be the logic of how authoritarianism sort of consolidates in the face
05:50
of sanctions. We do expect some of that. But at the same time, I mean, the protest itself is,
05:56
it's very difficult to discredit. It's very difficult to find things sort of against it,
06:01
because it is in and of itself peaceful and it has very clear demands. The demands being
06:08
new election and the unconditional sort of freeing of the people that are unjustly and unfairly
06:15
imprisoned. Right. So the United States said that it would sanction the billionaire founder
06:20
of the Georgian Dream Party, as you mentioned, Bedina Ivano-Shvili. But he's not even an elected
06:25
official. So why is he described as the de facto leader of Georgia? He is the founder of the
06:33
Georgian Dream, and he is essentially the drive behind the Georgian Dream. He is the honorary
06:40
chair of the party. And essentially, every decision that the party makes directly derives
06:46
from him. So he is at the heart of every process and every decision that comes out of the Georgian
06:52
Dream. And will these sanctions have a significant concrete effect? Or is it just about the message
06:59
that this move is sending? Thank you for that question. That's a loaded question. And I think
07:06
there's a lot to be considered here. First and foremost, I think there's mixed feelings regarding
07:12
the sanctions, because sanctions in themselves tend to have mixed effects, right? First and
07:17
foremost, there's, I mean, there's a part of the society that is overwhelmingly sort of excited
07:23
about the sanctions, as they seem to hope that it will have a sort of terminating effect on the
07:32
regime. There's the other group of people that are perhaps a little more cautious in their
07:36
expectations in relation to the sanctions, as again, as I said, sanctions in some cases tend to cause
07:45
a little more consolidation of the authoritarian practices. And we do expect that to happen.
07:51
You can feel that there is this lingering expectation of the incoming Trump administration
07:57
in the United States. As we know, the sanctions were now imposed through the executive order of
08:04
the President Biden. So I think on the side of the Georgian Dream supporters, the expectation
08:10
is that, you know, it will be the decision will be changed essentially by the Trump administration.
08:19
It's again, it's, there's a lot of moving parts here. And I will admit that a lot does depend
08:24
on the incoming Trump administration. The Georgian Dream has truly very obviously overrelied
08:33
on their message of the supposed sort of understanding that they have with the
08:39
incoming Trump administration. I think this has led a lot of their supporters to believe that
08:45
things are very certain for them in the future. And I will say that there are times when it has
08:50
felt that perhaps there may be some sort of an understanding between the Georgian Dream and the
08:55
incoming administration of the US. But then there are times when it's very obvious that the regime
09:01
here seems to just be over relying on something that they may not have all that much substance
09:08
for. All right, Mariam Tokadze, thank you very much for your analysis. We'll have to
09:13
leave it there. Mariam Tokadze from the Georgian Centre for Strategy and Development.
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