Mikheil Kavelashvili will (probably) be the next president of Georgia

Brussels – Georgian Dream, the ruling party in Georgia, has chosen far-right politician and former soccer player Mikheil Kavelashvili as its candidate for the presidency of the Republic. The post, which is up for renewal in mid-December, is substantially ceremonial and has no real incisive powers. But the Tbilisi parliament’s appointment of the successor to the pro-European Salomé Zourabichvili will be yet another confirmation of the direction in which the Caucasian country is heading after last month’s disputed legislative elections. And that is closer and closer to Russia and further away from the European Union.

On Wednesday (Nov. 27), Georgian Dream cadres chose Kavelashvili as their party’s candidate for head of state. Kavelashvili is 53 years old and a former player of the national soccer team, the British Premier League and the Swiss Super League. His entry into politics dates back to 2016 when he entered the parliament by being elected from the ranks of Georgian Dream, the pro-Russian and national-populist ruling party that has controlled the country since 2012. He left the latter in 2022 to found Power to the People, which is characterized by a strong anti-Western rhetoric (especially anti-U.S., but also against EU integration) and opposition to “Lgbtq+ propaganda”.

Political chaos

Currently, the role is held by Salomé Zourabichvili, the European and pro-Western president who is acting as a catalyst for the revolt of the parliamentary oppositions, who challenge the vote for the renewal of the legislative assembly held last October 26 as illegitimate (as hijacked by Moscow). On that date, local and international observers have reported grave and widespread violations of the election process that confirmed Georgian Dream in power for the fourth time in a row.

Opposition parties decided to boycott the work of the new hemicycle, but pro-government deputies had the numbers to get the legislature started anyway (Georgian Dream and Power to the People together hold 89 of the total 150 seats). Thus, last November 25, amid citizen protests, the new parliament formally took office as Zourabichvili branded it “unconstitutional.”

The appointment of the president

Next December 14, the assembly will be called to nominate the new president of the Republic. There is no doubt that the Georgian Dream candidate will get the job since, under the new rules introduced with the constitutional reform of 2017 (which will apply for the first time this year), the head of state will no longer be directly elected by the citizens but will be nominated by an electoral college of 300 members, including all 150 deputies plus 150 representatives of regions and local governments.

Presenting the former soccer player’s candidacy to the hemicycle (where, indeed, only the majority deputies were present), oligarch and Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili praised the latter’s “fundamental contribution” to “the protection of the national interests of Georgia and the strengthening of the country’s sovereignty.” At the same time, Kavelashvili argued that “our society is divided” due to foreign-fueled “radicalization and polarization” and accused Zourabichvili of violating the basic norms of the Caucasian state, promising that he will “bring the presidency back into its constitutional fold.”

Towards Moscow with fury

Once formally approved, Kavelashvili’s appointment will be yet another confirmation that Georgian Dream is pushing Tbilisi further into the Kremlin’s orbit and further away from Brussels. A slide that brought the EU to freeze Georgia‘s accession process to the twelve-star club last June, at least until the government backtracks on a series of measures deemed as liberticidal and incompatible with EU law.

Among them is one, also signed by Kavelashvili, requiring organizations that receive at least 20 per cent of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents”, modelled on a similar law passed in Vladimir Putin‘s Russia and which effectively authorized a clampdown on dissent and independent voices in the Federation.