From center forward to right-winger: Georgia’s new president
Published: Saturday, Dec 14th 2024, 15:50
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From footballer in Swiss clubs to politician to president: Mikheil Kavelashvili was elected Georgia's new head of state by the electoral assembly on Saturday.
As a candidate of the ruling Georgian Dream party, he is seen as its loyal follower. For pro-European demonstrators, he is a "puppet" of party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili - who in turn describes Kavelashvili, known for his expletive-laden tirades and anti-LGBTQ statements, as the "embodiment of a Georgian man".
Kavelashvili's election was boycotted by the opposition, which accuses the ruling party of fraud in the parliamentary election at the end of October. Due to a constitutional amendment passed in 2017, the Georgian head of state is no longer elected directly by the people as before, but by a 300-member electoral assembly made up of members of parliament and local politicians. The ex-footballer with the moustache and slicked-back hair was the only candidate standing for the largely representative office.
From Aarau to Zurich
Kavelashvili was born in 1971 in the small town of Bolnissi in the southwest of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. He began his career as a footballer in the 1980s with clubs in Georgia and Russia. He soon became a striker in the Georgian national team. In the 1990s, he played briefly for English club Manchester City before moving to Switzerland. There he played for Grasshoppers Zurich, Lucerne, Sion, Aarau and Basel, among others.
In 2015, Kavelashvili was excluded from the election for president of the Georgian Football Association because he did not have a university education - a requirement for this office. He has been a member of parliament for Georgian Dream since 2016. In 2022, together with other party MPs, he founded his own parliamentary group called People's Power - an anti-Western group that officially separated itself from the ruling party but was generally regarded as its appendage. Kavelashvili's political views are in line with ultra-right ideologies.
Foul language
The 53-year-old is known for using foul language against opponents and accuses Western countries of wanting to drag Georgia into the war in Ukraine. He also accused the West of trying to get "as many people as possible" to be "neutral or tolerant towards LGBTQ ideology". This "supposedly defends the weak, but is actually an act against humanity".
Kavelashvili's nomination for the office of president caused outrage among many people in Georgia - especially among the pro-European demonstrators who have been protesting daily for more than two weeks against the government's Russia-friendly policies.
Constitutional crisis continues
Historian Nika Gobronidze told the AFP news agency that he could "hardly imagine anyone less suited to the role of head of state". The influential entrepreneur Ivanishvili sees the ex-professional footballer as a tool that he can control. "Caligula wanted his horse to become a consul. Our oligarch wants his puppet to become president," Gobronidze explained, referring to the infamous Roman emperor.
Kavelashvili will see his legitimacy called into question from the outset. Constitutional law experts had described his election as "illegitimate" in advance. The incumbent, pro-Western president Salome Zurabishvili is calling for a repeat of the parliamentary elections in October. She has also vowed not to step down after Kavelashvili's inauguration, which is scheduled for December 29, as long as there are no new elections.
On Saturday, hundreds of people demonstrated against Kavelashvili and the government in front of the parliament building in Tbilisi. The election of the president does not put an end to the constitutional crisis in the Caucasus country. It remains to be seen whether Kavelashvili, who has gone from being a center-forward to a far-right politician, will actually lead Georgia in the near future.
©Keystone/SDA
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