Zurabishvili urged Europe to "start acting" in Georgia

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, who is due to cede the post to Mikhail Kavelashvili on December 29, rests — she is not going to leave the post of president and called on Europe to intervene in the affairs of Georgia, where the opposition has been protesting against the victory of the Georgian Dream in the elections for 20 days. Today, on December 18, Zurabishvili performed in Strasbourg at the plenary session of the European Parliament. MEPs greeted her with ovations.

"Perhaps we are moving towards civil confrontation, but the people are not divided… On the one hand — the people of Georgia, on the other — the repressive apparatus of the government," said Zurabishvili.

According to her, the ruling party "has been following the Russian path since at least 2019," which was manifested by the "Gavrilov night." At the same time, Zurabishvili claims, the Georgian Dream was forced to pretend that it wanted to move towards Europe — because even the majority of its supporters want the European way.

The Georgian president also announced the "usurpation of power," since, as Zurabishvili believes, "the elections were falsified in a particularly sophisticated way."

"Everything is controlled by one party and the power of one person… In fact, the Georgian Dream has stopped moving towards a European future without having a real mandate and without having the right to do so… A mass movement of civil disobedience that requires only two things: the return of votes and new elections," she told MEPs.

Zurabishvili called on the European Parliament to pay attention to the fact that "there are repressions against protesters in the country, the sword of Damocles is now hanging over NGOs and independent media in Georgia," and in a week she herself "will not have any protection", which she enjoyed as president.

"I hope we will not have to wait for the deepening of the crisis for Europe to act," Zurabishvili said.

She called on the European Union to use all available levers to ensure the holding of new elections in Georgia.

Meanwhile in The visit of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset to Tbilisi began today. The Georgian Dream called it international recognition of the parliamentary and presidential elections.