(Bloomberg) -- Georgia’s ruling party chose Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former soccer player and current lawmaker, to be their presidential candidate in the Dec. 14 election to replace the country’s current pro-Europe head of state.
“I hope he will serve Georgia, not foreign forces,” Georgian Dream’s founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, said on Wednesday while nominating him in the country’s capital of Tbilisi. He disparaged the current president, Salome Zourabichvili, who was elected with the ruling party’s backing in 2018, before falling out over policy differences.
Georgian Dream named their candidate after the parliament convened this week for its first session. Four opposition parties that back Zourabichvili are boycotting in protest of the Oct. 26 parliamentary elections results.
Zourabichvili and a group of 30 opposition lawmakers have filed Constitutional Court motions to nullify the election results.
Crowds of people marched across the city and demonstrated outside the legislature the night before parliament convened, which followed weeks of rallies over alleged fraud in last month’s vote.
Kavelashvili, 53, played professional soccer from 1988 until 2006, including as a striker for Manchester City Football Club, as well as Dinamo Tbilisi, clubs in Switzerland and Georgia’s national team. He’s known in the country for making controversial statements often laced with obscenities, and has been critical of Zourabichvili and pro-European Union lawmakers. He was first elected to parliament in 2016 with the Georgian Dream party.
“I fully understand how great a responsibility the presidency is,” Kavelashvili said when accepting the party’s nomination. “Especially in the context of the current president, who has insulted and disregarded the main document – the Constitution.”
The opposition was quick to criticize the choice. “Ivanishvili has chosen the most prominent anti-Western figure as his presidential candidate,” Khatia Dekanoidze, a leader in the opposition, said in a Facebook post. “This reflects his vision for the country and its people.”
Tensions had already increased in the Caucasus republic of 4 million people after Georgian Dream passed legislation that the US and the EU have labeled as “Kremlin-inspired.” The government ignored mass protests in May and adopted a “foreign agent” law that targeted non-governmental organizations and independent media.
Before the election, Ivanishvili had alleged that a “global war party” in the West was plotting to oust the government using NGOs and to push Georgia into a conflict with Russia.
“They were searching for a candidate who would remain loyal,” said Ramaz Sakvarelidze, a political analyst affiliated with the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs in Tbilisi. Kavelashvili likely won’t be “as problematic as his predecessors,” he said.
The president, whose role is largely ceremonial, will be chosen by the country’s Electoral College consisting of 300 people, including all members of parliament, under constitutional changes taking effect this year. A candidate needs two-thirds of the vote to win. If no candidate secures 200 votes, a second round of balloting will be held between the two highest vote-getters.
Parliament scheduled the president’s inauguration for Dec. 29.
(Updates with additional background starting from second paragraph and quote from Kavelashvili in seventh paragraph.)
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