Showdown in Georgia as pro-EU president refuses to step down

Salome Zourabichvili’s term in office ends on Sunday — but Georgia’s pro-Western president says she’s not going anywhere.

Zourabichvili on Saturday joined thousands of people across the country forming human chains to protest against the installation of a new president — far-right firebrand and former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili — set to take place Sunday.

Speaking on the podcast The Rest Is Politics on Friday, Zourabichvili doubled down on her intention not to leave office.

“This election and hence the inauguration of the president is not valid, so I remain president, and I continue to do my job — that is what everybody has to know,” said Zourabichvili.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze threatened Zourabichvili with jail if she doesn’t step aside for Kavelashvili. “Let’s see where she ends up, behind bars or outside,” Kobakhidze said last week.

Kavelashvili was the only candidate in the the presidential elections that took place through an electoral college dominated by the increasingly authoritarian ruling party Georgian Dream. The opposition did not put forward any candidates because they boycotted the polling, saying the process was rigged from the start.

The inauguration of Kavelashvili is expected to further exacerbate the deep political crisis in the South Caucasus country that broke out after the contested Oct. 26 parliamentary election in which the pro-Russian Georgian Dream claimed a landslide victory.

The opposition parties and Zourabichvili do not acknowledge the election results and claim they were rigged. The European Parliament concluded in a resolution that the election was not fair and must be rerun, but the bloc’s attempt to sanction Georgian Dream officials was blocked by a Hungarian and Slovak veto.

The protests that have spread across the country since the October vote escalated after the Georgian government in Tbilisi decided to suspend EU membership negotiations.

In a move encouraging for protesters, the U.S. on Friday sanctioned oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, the chairman of Georgian Dream, “for undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation.”

U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson on Friday invited Zourabichvili to the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as the “only legitimate leader in Georgia.”