Large demonstrations have continued for more than two weeks after the government suspended Georgia’s EU membership negotiations.
Georgia will elect a new president today. The election is made, among other things, by an electorate assembly consisting of MPs. The sure winner is the Georgian dream candidate of the anti-Western power party Mikheil Kavelashvili.
The current president Salomé Zurabishvili the season ends on Monday, but he has said he refuses to step down.
There have been large anti-government protests in Georgia since the Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that the country would freeze negotiations on EU membership. President Zurabishvili has been a prominent figure on the side of the protesters.
Georgia got EU candidate status a year ago. The EU, for its part, put the membership process on hold already last summer, when a Russian-style law was passed in Georgia, which forces foreign-funded media and non-governmental organizations to register as “foreign agents”.
The Georgian dream won the country’s parliamentary elections held in October. According to the opposition and Western countries, the elections were fraudulent, but the government has rejected demands to renew them.
The opposition has boycotted the work of the parliament after the elections and will not participate in the electorate meeting that will vote for the president today.