By Felix Light
TBILISI (Reuters) -Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili called the government illegitimate on Saturday and said she would not leave office when her term ends next month, defying the prime minister as he accused pro-EU opposition forces of plotting revolution.
The South Caucasus country was thrown into crisis on Thursday, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream party said it was halting European Union accession talks for the next four years over what it called “blackmail” of Georgia by the bloc, abruptly reversing a long-standing national goal.
EU membership is overwhelmingly popular in Georgia, which has the aim of joining the bloc enshrined in its constitution, and the sudden freezing of accession talks has triggered large protests in the mountainous country of 3.7 million people.
In an address on Saturday, Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December, and that she would stay in post.
Zourabichvili and other government critics say an Oct. 26 election, in which Georgian Dream won almost 54% of the vote, was rigged, and that the parliament it elected is illegitimate.
“There is no legitimate parliament, and therefore, an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration can take place, and my mandate continues until a legitimately elected parliament is formed,” she said.
Earlier, Kobakhidze accused opponents of the halt to EU accession of plotting a revolution, along the lines of Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protest, which ousted a pro-Russian president.
“Some people want a repeat of that scenario in Georgia. But there will be no Maidan in Georgia,” Kobakhidze said.
The country’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday it had detained 107 people in the capital, Tbilisi, overnight during a protest which saw demonstrators build barricades along the central Rustaveli Avenue, and hurl fireworks at riot police, who used water cannon and teargas to disperse them.
Georgia’s domestic intelligence agency, the State Security Service, said “specific political parties” were attempting to “overthrow the government by force”.
MORE PROTESTERS GATHER
Many thousands of protesters were gathering late on Saturday in Tbilisi, building barricades outside parliament amid a large presence of riot police, and local media reported protests in towns and cities throughout the country.
Hundreds of employees at Georgia’s foreign, defence, justice and education ministries, and at the central bank, have signed open letters condemning the decision to freeze EU accession talks.
Major businesses, including the London-listed banks TBC Bank and Bank of Georgia stated their support for EU accession, while Georgia’s most senior diplomats in Italy and the Netherlands resigned in protest on Saturday, local media reported.
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, a star of Georgia’s national soccer team, spoke out in favour of the protesters.
“My country hurts, my people hurt – it’s painful and emotional to watch the videos that are circulating, stop the violence and aggression! Georgia deserves Europe today more than ever!” Kvaratskhelia wrote on Facebook (NASDAQ:) on Saturday.
Standing outside the parliament building in the capital, where the flags of the EU and Georgia hang side by side, protester Tina Kupreishvili said she wanted Georgia to uphold its constitutional commitment to joining the EU.
“The people of Georgia are trying to protect their constitution, trying to protect their country and the state, and they are trying to tell our government that rule of law means everything,” she told Reuters.
The halt to EU accession caps months of deteriorating relations between Georgian Dream, which has faced allegations of authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies, and the West.
The party is dominated by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire ex-prime minister who adopted increasingly anti-Western positions in the run-up to the October election.
Both the ruling party and Georgia’s electoral commission say the poll was free and fair. Western countries have called for an investigation into alleged violations.
The EU had already said Georgia’s application was stalled over laws against “foreign agents” and LGBTQ+ rights that it has described as draconian and pro-Russian.
Meanwhile, Georgian Dream has moved to build ties with neighbouring Russia, from which Georgia gained independence in 1991.
The two countries have no diplomatic ties since a brief war over a Moscow-backed rebel region in 2008, but restored direct flights in 2023, while Moscow lifted visa restrictions on Georgian nationals earlier this year.