The President of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, has almost finished her six-year term in what is largely a ceremonial position, yet the French-born politician has become far more than a figurehead over the past few years.
She has led opposition to a set of repressive laws introduced by the country’s ruling party, Georgian Dream, and more importantly, perhaps, managed to unite a fractious opposition in its attempts to unseat the government in Saturday’s parliamentary election.
Yet those attempts have failed after Georgian Dream, led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, claimed 54% of the vote.
Leaders of the main opposition parties, alongside Ms Zourabichvili, say the election was stolen.
In an interview at the elegant Orbeliani Palace in the capital Tbilisi, I reminded President Zourabichvili of the statement she gave after casting her vote.
“You were convinced that the opposition would win. You said ‘tonight, victory will be ours. Our dreams will come true’. What happened?,” I asked her.
“I was right,” she said. “We won the elections. The pro-European forces won the elections. The fact that they were stolen is a different story.”
The president said various methods were used to rig the vote but argued the introduction of new electronic voting machines was key.
“All the forms [of fraud] were used plus new technologies. The electronic equipment that was for the first time used in the elections in Georgia was used to reproduce votes. With one ID, you could vote 15, 17, 20 times and that is being documented in many [ways].”
Georgian Dream party leader Bidzina Ivanishvili. Pic: Reuters
Reports of ballot box stuffing
International election observers said they witnessed a series of fraudulent and unfair practices in the lead-up to, and on election day.
Cases of ballot box stuffing, double-voting, intimidation, and other forms of pressure were reported but election monitors did not condemn the election outright.
A video shared on social media showed a man stuffing ballots into a box at a polling station in Marneuli
I suggested to President Zourabichvili that it was problematic for her that the observers had refrained from declaring the poll invalid.
“No, it’s not a problem because international observer missions never condemn elections two days after the election.
“The observation is done more by locals than by these international observers who have travelled through the country and it’s very difficult for them.”
Was election a ‘Russian special operation’?
Infuriated by the result, leading figures in the opposition have described the election as a “Russian special operation” that was planned in Moscow and executed by the leader of Georgian Dream, Mr Ivanishvili.
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Voting irregularities in Georgia
I asked the president whether she agreed with that claim.
“Yes, I think so, I don’t know whether it was planned in Moscow, but the methodology, the sophistication, the extent, the fact that in different places of the country, different methods were used in parallel, all of that is a very good organisation.
“It’s not something that was just something, ‘I tried to fraud here and there’. It was very well planned in advance.”
“It’s a strong accusation to make,” I countered. “Some people are going to say the real problem here is that the opposition, including yourself, are refusing to accept the verdict of the election.”
She told me to look at the popular protests fuelled by the ruling party’s decision to pass a Russian-style ‘foreign agent’ law.
The bill, which was passed in May, restricts the ability of media and civil society groups in receipt of foreign funds to function normally.
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“The will of the Georgian population was shown on the streets last March, April, and those hundreds of thousands of people – have they disappeared?”, the president asked.
Fears of violence
I asked her if she was trying to unseat the government.
“I’m not there to unseat anyone,” she said. “I have made a judgement on the elections… I’m the only independent institution in the country that is left. Those who have to confirm it are the people.”
Challenged over whether people could get hurt, Ms Zourbichvili was blunt in her response.
“Well, people will get hurt,” she said.
So, did she expect her time as president to end in uncertainty and instability?
“Certainly not. And I hope it won’t.”