Georgian lawmakers hand presidency to former soccer star

Georgia’s governing lawmakers on Saturday handed the presidency to a former soccer star turned far-right politician, setting up a standoff with the sitting president and deepening the country’s political turmoil after weeks of protests and a disputed parliamentary election.

Mikheil Kavelashvili, 53, a former striker for the Manchester City soccer team in England, was the sole candidate for the post, and the first to be chosen by an electoral college that replaced direct presidential elections seven years ago.

A coalition of opposition parties boycotted the vote, because they say the parliamentary elections in late October were marred by allegations of vote buying, intimidation and violence. But Kavelashvili was backed by the conservative Georgian Dream party, which has held a majority in Parliament for over a decade and steered the small Caucasus nation away from the European Union and closer to Russia and China.

The vote sets up a standoff between Kavelashvili, who is to assume office in 15 days, and the departing president, Salome Zourabichvili, who has sided with the opposition and vowed to stay in office until new elections are held. In a post on social platform X, she called the result a “mockery of democracy,” comparing it with the way Georgia’s leaders were chosen when the country was part of the Soviet Union.

It is unclear what she could do to prevent Kavelashvili from taking his seat. On Nov. 30, she insisted that “there will be no inauguration and my mandate continues.” But on Dec. 3, Georgia’s constitutional court rejected a challenge to the elections filed by Zourabichvili and opposition groups.

Zourabichvili, who was elected by Georgia’s final popular vote for president, is pro-Western, while Kavelashvili espouses strongly anti-Western views. He claimed several times this year that Western intelligence agencies were conspiring to push Georgia into conflict with Moscow, which ruled Georgia as part of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, until 1991.

Russia, which fought a five-day war with Georgia in 2008, still seeks influence over the strategically located Black Sea country.

Georgia has been racked by political crisis since May, when Georgian Dream lawmakers passed a law on “foreign influence” co-written by Kavelashvili.

The law requires nongovernmental groups and media organizations that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad to register as organizations “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” Its opponents argue that it was modeled on a 2012 Russian law on “foreign agents,” which the Kremlin has used as part of a broad crackdown on rights groups, news outlets and others.

The crisis in Georgia further deepened after the elections in October, which were followed by weeks of street protests. Last month, the prime minister, who occupies a more powerful position than the president and is a member of the Georgian Dream party, said that Georgia would be suspending its work toward membership in the European Union, setting off another round of protests.

On Friday, following repeated clashes between protesters and police, Parliament passed a law that bans face coverings and the use of fireworks at public demonstrations.

Before the vote to install Kavelashvili, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of Parliament, according to videos on social media. Some kicked soccer balls, while others reportedly brought their college diplomas, an allusion to the criticism that the former soccer player lacks a university degree.

Kavelashvili entered Parliament with Georgian Dream in 2016 but left in 2022 to co-found People’s Power, an anti-Western party. He was nominated for the presidency by Georgian Dream’s honorary chair, businessperson Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his $7.7 billion fortune largely in banking, metals and Russian real estate. His ties there are often cited by protesters as a reason for the party’s pro-Russia policies.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.