Georgia’s president, locked in a standoff with her own government, appealed to Western
countries on Monday to back what she called a “national movement” in support of Georgia’s integration with the European Union.
President Salome Zourabichvili was speaking shortly before protesters and police resumed clashes for the fifth straight night since the governing Georgian Dream party said last week that it was suspending talks on joining the EU.
Critics saw that announcement as confirmation of a Russian-influenced shift away from pro-Western policies and back towards Moscow’s orbit, something the ruling party denies.
Zourabichvili, who has personally remonstrated with riot police, told Reuters that she wanted European countries to send a “very clear message” that they would not recognise the outcome of an October election in which official results gave Georgian Dream 54% of the vote, and would push for a re-run.
Zourabichvili and the opposition parties have said that the poll was fraudulent, a charge denied by both Georgian Dream and the electoral commission.
Zourabichvili says that Russia, having already invaded Ukraine, is conducting a “hybrid war” against Georgia and other countries such as Moldova and Romania, a NATO and EU member.
As darkness fell on Monday, thousands of demonstrators assembled once again outside parliament and riot police, as on previous nights, fired water cannon to fend off protesters
throwing fireworks.
The 72-year-old president, who was born in France to Georgian parents and once served as French ambassador to Georgia, said strong support from the West was “the only
political way out of this crisis. There is no other political recipe”.
She praised “very courageous” officials who have resigned in protest against the government, including four ambassadors and the head instructor of the interior ministry’s training academy.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied on Monday that Russia was interfering in the situation in Georgia, which he compared to the 2014 “Maidan” revolution in Ukraine that overthrew a pro-Russian president.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned on Sunday that Georgia was “moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss”, predicting it would end “very badly”.
Zourabichvili denied that the situation constituted a revolution like those that previously brought pro-Western governments to power in Ukraine and Georgia.
With Reuters inputs
