Georgia’s New President, An Ex-Soccer Player, Solidifies Anti-EU Leadership

The Republic of Georgia has a new president, and he is a former professional footballer for Manchester City: 53-year old Mikheil Kavelashvili of Georgian Dream party.

He emerged victorious on Saturday, but was the only candidate, after 224 out of 225 members of Georgia’s electoral college voted him in. This is after the country’s main opposition groups declared a boycott of parliament, claiming the October elections which saw the Dream Party sweep were rigged.

Large pro-EU protests have since been a mainstay in the capital of Tbilisi. ”According to the results provided by the secretary general [of the Central Election Commission/CEC], Mikhail Kavelashvili has been elected president,” CEC Chairman Giorgi Kalandarishvili announced this weekend.

Kavelashvili’s inauguration is set for December 29, and that too is likely to be heavily protested, amid police deploying riot control methods against larger and larger crowds all this month.

Western media describes him as “far right” and a hardline critic of the West, as well as ‘conspiratorial’ given he has in the recent past claimed that Western interests are seeking to drive Georgia into conflict with Russia.

Who is Mikheil Kavelashvili?

One European source provides the following brief backgrounder…

It has been an unlikely path to the presidency for Kavelashvili, who emerged from Dinamo Tblisi’s youth system as a promising young footballer in 1989. He went on to build a successful career as a striker, becoming a regular for his local team before moving to Russian side Spartak Vladikavkaz in 1995.

He then joined English side Manchester City for two seasons before playing for several different Swiss Super League teams and retiring in 2006. During his playing career, he amassed 46 appearances for the Georgian national team and scored nine goals.

Just 10 years after his retirement from the football world, he was elected to Georgia’s parliament in 2016 on the Georgian Dream ticket. In 2022, he co-founded the People’s Power political movement, which was allied with Georgian Dream and became known for its strong anti-western rhetoric.

He has been criticized for lack of governing credentials, despite having previously been an MP. More from EuroNews:

Kavelashvili has often been mocked by the opposition in Georgia for lacking higher education. On the day of his election as president, protesters outside the parliament building brought their own university diplomas, while others kicked around footballs.

Kavelashvili was one of the authors of a controversial law requiring organisations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.

Day 18th of non-stop protests.
Tbilisi. Now#GeorgiaProtests

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— Tata Chemia (@tchemia) December 15, 2024

The dividing lines for Georgia’s current crisis, which has seen the Dream Party solidify complete control of the government – but with unrest in the streets - is much like Ukraine’s political divide in 2014. But let’s hope the situation doesn’t turn to open conflict involving the US or Russia, which is something officials in Tbilisi have long been worried about.