Former football player Mikheil Kavelashvili became the president of Georgia on Saturday. Kavelashvili, 53, easily won the vote given the Georgian Dream party's control of a 300-seat electoral college that replaced direct presidential elections in 2017.
The opposition called Kavelashvili's win a blow to the country's EU aspirations and a victory for Russia. They also alleged that Georgian Dream’s South Caucasus nation parliament win, in the October 26 election, was rigged with the help of Moscow.
Georgian Dream has vowed to continue pushing toward EU accession but also wants to reset ties with Russia.
In 2008, Russia fought a brief war with Georgia, which led to Moscow's recognition of two breakaway regions as independent, and an increase in the Russian military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Who is Kavelashvili?
Kavelashvili was born in 1971 in Georgia's Bolnisi town. He was a striker in the Premier League for Manchester City and has also played in several clubs in the Swiss Super League. It was in 2016, that he was elected to parliament on the Georgian Dream ticket. He co-founded the People’s Power political movement in 2022, which allied with the Georgian Dream and became known for its strong anti-Western rhetoric.
In 2015, he was disqualified from running for president of the Georgian Football Federation as he lacked the higher education required for the role.
He is known for his controversial statements against LBTQ people as well.
Protesters called Kavelashvili a "puppet" of Georgian Dream's founder and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Also, Kavelashvili was one of the authors of a controversial law requiring organisations that receive more than 20 per cent of their funding from abroad to register as pursuing the interest of a foreign power, similar to a Russian law used to discredit organisations critical of the government.
Following the approval of the foreign influence law, the EU that granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 put its accession on hold and cut financial support in June.
Thousands of demonstrators converged on the parliament building every night after the government announced the suspension of EU accession talks on November 28.
Hundreds of people protested in the capital city of Tbilisi for weeks to show their anger against the ruling Georgian Dream for shelving EU accession talks.
