Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili addresses crowds during Independence Day celebrations in Tbilisi, Georgia, 26 May 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / IRAKLI GEDENIDZE / POOL

Pro-European Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili restated her determination to remain in her post on Saturday, as the country’s elected politicians began the process of electing a new head of state, according to independent Telegram news channel SOVA Georgia.

For the first time, the post of Georgia’s largely ceremonial president will be decided by a special electoral college comprising some 300 elected officials rather than by a popular vote as it has been in the past. The voting procedure began in parliament on Saturday morning and is expected to end by Saturday afternoon.

The sole nominee for the post of president is the former footballer turned politician Mikheil Kavelashvili, an MP for the ruling Georgian Dream party, who, once elected by the electoral college, will be inaugurated on 29 December.

A group of Georgians converged outside the parliament building on Saturday and held up their university diplomas in protest at the fact that former Manchester City player Kavelashvili is not known to have completed any form of higher education.

Zourabichvili called the election, which comes just two months after parliamentary elections that many observers and analysts have agreed were rigged in favour of Georgian Dream, “a provocation or a parody” and pledged to remain in post as “the country definitely needs one legitimate institution”. She also reiterated her call for fresh parliamentary elections.

During her six-year presidential term, Zourabichvili has increasingly emerged as a figurehead for the pro-European Georgian opposition, earning her the enmity of the increasingly authoritarian Georgian Dream party, who many Georgians now fear will lead the country back into Moscow’s sphere of influence.