The President of Georgia will not resign until the “illegitimate” elections are repeated Political news

A pro-EU critic of the ruling Georgian Dream party says she will not step down next month because the parliament was elected fraudulently.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said she would not step down when her term ends because the parliament is “illegitimate”, while the prime minister warned of a “revolution” as pro-European protests continued.

Thousands of Georgians protested for a third straight night on Saturday after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced a government will stop negotiations on joining the EU.

The goal of joining the 27 member states is now written into the Georgian constitution, and the prime minister, who has been building closer relations with Russia – suspended the talks for four years and accused Brussels of “blackmail”.

Zourabichvili, an EU critic of the ruling Georgian Dream party, said in a speech on Saturday that parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December and that she would remain in office.

The president, whose powers are largely ceremonial, claims that in the October 26 national election, in which Georgian Dream won with 54 percent of the vote, was fraudulent and therefore renders the elected parliament illegitimate.

“There is no legitimate parliament and therefore an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration can take place and my mandate continues until a legitimately elected parliament is established,” she said.

Georgia’s Election Commission earlier this month confirmed the ruling party as the winnerbut watchdogs and politicians in the EU and the US have also suggested an investigation into possible fraud.

The country’s interior ministry said on Saturday it had arrested 107 people in the capital Tbilisi during a night of protests in which some demonstrators erected barricades and threw fireworks at police who used water cannons and tear gas.

The unrest erupted when Prime Minister Kobakhidze accused opponents of the government’s move to halt talks on joining the EU in planning a revolution, similar to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protests that toppled a pro-Russian president.

“The Maidan scenario cannot be implemented in Georgia. Georgia is a country, and of course the country will not allow this,” Kobakhidze was quoted as saying by local media.

The US State Department announced on Saturday that it has suspended strategic partnership relations with Georgia following the decision of the Georgian Dream party to suspend EU accession.

“We condemn the excessive force used against Georgians who are rightfully protesting the betrayal of their constitution — the EU is a bulwark against the Kremlin,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller wrote to X.

“That is why we have suspended our strategic partnership with Georgia.”

Georgia gained independence from neighboring Russia in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the two countries have had no diplomatic relations since a brief 2008 war over the Moscow-backed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

However, the efforts of the Georgian Dream party to build closer relations with Russia had already stopped the country’s application for EU membership.

The bloc has stated that laws against “foreign agents” and LGBTQ rights are among the main causes of the situation, as they restrict human rights and are modeled after Russian legislation.