Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili on Saturday said she talked with US president-elect Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron about the Georgian parliamentary election last month in her country that she and the opposition say was rigged.
“In depth discussion with Presidents Trump & Macron,” Zourabichvili, who was in Paris for the reopening of the Notre-Dame cathedral, wrote on X late on Saturday, with a photo showing her, Trump and Macron talking.
“Exposed the stolen election and extremely alarming repression against the people of Georgia,” she added.
Photo: Reuters
Zourabichvili became the voice of the now weeks-long protest movement following the October vote that gave the ruling Georgian Dream party a win and its subsequent announcement that it was suspending efforts to join the EU.
Thousands of protesters marched in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on the same day for the 10th day of rallies sparked by the government’s decision to shelve EU accession talks.
The leader of Georgia’s main opposition party and several other members have been detained during the protests and on Saturday the opposition said one of its politicians was beaten during a police raid on its offices.
Photo: Reuters
Georgian media also reported that a camera crew from pro-opposition Pirveli TV was attacked by masked men while broadcasting from near the protest site.
“The Russian regime is back at work tonight in Tbilisi — chasing civilians through the streets as they flee terror, targeting politicians, media, artists,” Zourabichvili wrote in a separate post on X on Saturday, posting a video showing a group of hooded men with batons beating up several men in a building.
Zourabichvili, who has a largely ceremonial role as president, and the opposition have accused Georgian Dream of pursuing increasingly authoritarian, anti-Western and pro-Russian policies in the nation of 3.7 million people.
The Kremlin has denied that Russia is interfering in the situation in Georgia, which Moscow compared to the 2014 “Maidan” revolution in Ukraine that overthrew a pro-Russian president.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said he fully backed Georgian anti-government protesters and urged Tbilisi to stop “surrendering” to Russia in a meeting with Zourabichvili in Paris.
“I expressed Ukraine’s full support and solidarity with the Georgian people, who are fighting for their dignified future, and emphasized that respecting the will of the Georgian people and preventing [Bidzina] Ivanishvili’s government from surrendering the country to Putin is essential for the stability and future of the region,” Zelensky said on social media.
PROTESTS
In Tbilisi, thousands of pro-European protesters marched from Tbilisi State University toward parliament, blocking one of the city’s main traffic arteries.
As on previous nights, some demonstrators banged on the metal barriers blocking the parliament’s entrance. Others pointed laser beams at the building and the police blocking the adjacent streets.
Some demonstrators held signs reading “We demand free and fair elections” and “Free all unjustly arrested,” as calls for stronger international backing grew louder among the protesters.
With both sides ruling out a compromise, there appeared to be no clear route out of the crisis.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has praised his security forces after several opposition party offices were raided and their leaders arrested.
“We have won an important battle against liberal fascism in our country,” he told journalists, using language reminiscent of Kremlin rhetoric against its political opponents.
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland in a joint statement on Saturday condemned “the disproportionate use of force” against peaceful protesters and the targeting of the opposition and media representatives in Georgia.
They demanded that “fundamental rights, including freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, must be upheld and protected as per Georgia’s constitution and international commitments.”
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