Salome Zourabichvili's tenure as the fifth president of Georgia began with her inauguration on 16 December 2018 and has been disputed with Mikheil Kavelashvili since 29 December 2024 as part of a country's political crisis. It was the first presidency since the adoption of a new Constitution transforming Georgia into a parliamentary system in 2018. Zourabichvili's term was the longest term of any presidency in Georgia's history, as the transition into a new Constitution meant that her mandate lasted until 2024.
Salome Zourabichvili is a former French diplomat of Georgian origins who served France's diplomatic corps until her selection as Georgia's Foreign Affairs Minister in 2004. Often a critic of bureaucratic restraints, the concentration of powers, and corruption under the leadership of Mikheil Saakashvili, she became an opposition leader in 2006, until joining the Georgian Dream political coalition as an independent member of Parliament in 2016. In 2018, she was elected in a contentious election with 60% of the vote, making her the second non-partisan President of Georgia (the first being her predecessor, Giorgi Margvelashvili.)
With limited powers compared to her predecessors, Zourabichvili's presidency began with a move to create an investigation into the mysterious death of former President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a push that was welcomed by both the Georgian Dream ruling party and members of the opposition.
Background Zourabichvili's Background
Born and raised in France from a Georgian family that emigrated to Western Europe following the Soviet takeover of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1921, Salomé Zourabichvili kept deep links with the local Georgian community, her father serving as chairman of the Georgian diaspora in Paris, a position later occupied by her brother, Otar. Attending some of the most prestigious political schools in the West, Zourabichvili graduated from the Paris Institute of Political Studies and studied under US geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski at Columbia University in 1972.
Zourabichvili took on a foreign policy career in 1974, serving several French embassies across the world, until she was appointed during the Jacques Chirac presidency as head of the Division of International and Strategic Issues of National Defense. In 2003, Paris sent her as ambassador to Georgia during the last days of the Eduard Shevardnadze presidency, where she witnessed the Rose Revolution of November 2003 that overthrew the controversial administration of Shevardnadze and brought to power a new, Western-backed government led by Mikheil Saakashvili.
In March 2004, while still serving as French ambassador in Tbilisi, the Georgian Parliament granted her Georgian citizenship, allowing President Saakashvili to appoint her as Minister of Foreign Affairs, becoming the first woman to occupy that post. As Minister, she soon took on a large reform project, attempting to transition a ministry plagued with corruption and mismanagement under the chaotic years of the Shevardnadze presidency. Her attempts were often met with criticism, including by incumbent ambassadors. Zourabichvili still managed to expand Georgia's cooperation with several post-Soviet nations, leading the creation of a "New Group of Friends of Georgia" which included the Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Czech Republic, while launching an ambitious plan to join NATO and the European community. Most notably, she oversaw the successful negotiations that led to the departure of Russian military bases from Akhalkalaki and Batumi.
Following clashes with Parliament, Salomé Zourabichvili was sacked by Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli in October 2005, which led her to form the first real opposition party to the Saakashvili administration, The Way of Georgia. While being one of the first mainstream critics of the government, she was soon joined by a string of former government officials and business leaders that criticized President Saakashvili for what they saw as the rise of a police state, assaults on free speech, and corruption in all levels of government.Levitsky, Steven & Lucan A. Way (2010). Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 227. . While being informally selected as a potential Prime Minister under a theoretical opposition-led government, she left politics after leading a series of massive protests in Tbilisi in 2009 and taking a high-ranking position working for the United Nations.
In 2012, Zourabichvili endorsed the newly formed Georgian Dream, a coalition of opposition political parties led by businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili, who became Prime Minister following the 2012 legislative elections. In 2016, she was elected to Parliament as an independent, representing the Mtatsminda neighborhood of Tbilisi.
New Constitution
The 1995 Constitution of Georgia has been in effect ever since its ratification under the Shevardnadze presidency. However, it received some major amendments in its short history, including shortly after the 2003 Rose Revolution, during which President Saakashvili led efforts to increase presidential powers to allow the head of state to dismiss Parliament, while creating the post of Prime Minister.
However, the ruling government adopted several major amendments in 2010 that not only undid some of the 2004 changes, but also severely decreased the powers of the Presidency, in an attempt by President Saakashvili to reform the infrastructure of government after his departure. The amendments, which went into effect in 2013, made the Prime Minister the most powerful position in Georgia's domestic infrastructure, granting him the power to appoint and fire ministers, while being himself elected by Parliament, instead of being selected by the President. The reforms kept the President's foreign policy prerogatives, including the appointment of ambassadors, but gave Parliament the power to ratify any international negotiations, while keeping the President as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, a significant power in the wake of the Georgian-Russian conflict. Among other changes, the President kept the power to appoint the head of the Ajaran Autonomous Republic, but lost the power to appoint and dismiss regional governors.
The new Constitution was one of the most significant changes in Georgian political history and was transitioned into force under the leaderships of Prime Ministers Bidzina Ivanishvili and Irakli Garibashvili and President Giorgi Margvelashvili, who succeeded Saakashvili in 2013.
More amendments were set to be inaugurated with the 2018 presidential election, further weakening the presidency's powers. Notably, the President lost the right to participate in cabinet discussions and the President was removed from the National Security Council, which manages the military developments of Georgia's armed forces and oversees the country's national security and defence policy. These final amendments also abolished popular elections for President, guaranteeing the winner of the 2018 election to be the last publicly elected head of state; instead, starting in 2024, the President will be selected by an Electoral College of 300 members, including members of Parliament and representatives of local governments.
2018 Presidential Election
Due to the constitutional amendments of 2010, the 2018 presidential election was set to be the last such election in Georgian history. 46 candidates filed to run for the position, but only 25 were admitted by the Central Election Commission. In August 2013, in a largely expected announcement, President Giorgi Margvelashvili, first elected in 2013, refused to run for reelection, following a presidency filled with clashes with Parliament. Instead, Salomé Zourabichvili announced her candidacy as an independent candidate on 6 August and secured the support of the ruling political coalition, Georgian Dream, which decided to not field a candidate from its own ranks on 9 September.
Meanwhile, former Parliament Speaker Davit Bakradze, former Foreign Affairs Minister Grigol Vashadze, and 22 other candidates were nominated by multiple political parties or ran as independent candidates. The campaign season included many topics, including welfare programs, the legal future of cannabis, immigration, the Russian-Georgian conflict and the separatist issues in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Soon, the campaigns mainly coalesced around those of Bakradze and Vashadze, who shared the support of former President Saakashvili's partisans, and that of Zourabichvili, who touted her foreign policy experience and her position to protect the Abkhaz language in the face of increased Russian integration of Abkhazia.
Following a large discrepancy between public polls,Consult 2018 Georgian presidential election#Opinion polls to see the list of public polls taken during the election. 1.6 million voters participated in the first round of the election, which saw Salomé Zourabichvili pull ahead, followed by United National Movement's Grigol Vashadze. During the second phase of the campaign, Zourabichvili raised an overwhelming amount of money, including 80% of total donations, while positioning herself as a candidate representing the rural regions of Georgia, in contrast with Vashadze, who won the popular vote in large cities during the first round of voting. Ultimately, Salomé Zourabichvili won the final vote, obtaining almost 60% of the total vote in an election with 57% voter turnout.
Transition and Inauguration President-elect Salome Zourabichvili met sitting President Giorgi Margvelashvili on 3 December, inaugurating the first cordial transition of power between two Georgian presidents. (In 1992, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was ousted by a violent coup, while Eduard Shevardnadze was deposed in 2003 during the Rose Revolution, and Mikheil Saakashvili refused to attend the inauguration of his successor in 2013.) However, a revised budget proposal presented by the Finance Ministry shortly prior to the runoff revealed severe financial cuts to the President's budget, significantly changing the nature of the presidency. The proposal reduced the budget by 39% of its total funding, cutting the allocated staff from 140 to just 60 members, and abolishing the President's Reserve Fund, a special budget allocating funds to projects chosen by the Presidency.
Opposition leaders, meanwhile, called foul on the electoral results, despite their certification by the Central Election Commission. Grigol Vashadze called on 12 December for massive protests across the country and threatened to sue the new administration over electoral results. While Telavi, the provincial capital of Kakheti, was selected as the inaugural city by the Zourabichvili team, leaders of the United National Movement announced they would hold large protests in front of the inaugural site, protests that would eventually be moved or prevented by local law enforcement. On 16 December, rallies were held in Batumi, Zugdidi, Kutaisi, and Tbilisi, leading to injuries for two police officers and the arrest of UNM leader Davit Kirkitadze.
During the transition period, Zourabichvili met with several government and foreign leaders, including EU Ambassador Carl Hartzell and NATO Representative James Appathurai, reassuring her future administration's goal to pursue a pro-Western policy. Meanwhile, in an attempt to diffuse nationwide protests, she offered to invite Grigol Vashadze on 6 December if the latter agreed to concede the victory.