San Francisco Frontiers - Salome Zurabishvili: defiant champion of Georgia's EU dream

The Georgian president, 72, has increasingly become embroiled in a fierce feud with the ruling Georgian Dream party as it turned increasingly illiberal, backing massive anti-government protests.

Born in Paris to a Georgian family who fled Bolshevik rule in the 1920s, Zurabishvili has accused the government of steering Tbilisi back towards Moscow and acting on Russian orders.

"We are witnesses and victims of a Russian special operation, a modern form of hybrid war against the Georgian people," she declared after a contested October parliamentary election.

For tens of thousands of protesters, Zurabishvili represents hope against an increasingly repressive government that has adopted a series of Kremlin-styled laws.

She has demanded a re-run of the election marred by widespread fraud and which she says Georgian Dream "stole."

Her mandate is meant to end later this month but she has vowed not to step down unless Georgian Dream organises another vote.

"As long as there are no new elections... my mandate continues," she told AFP in late November.

The move will put the tiny Caucasus country in uncharted territory.

Zurabishvili has vowed to stand by the thousands of protesters staging daily rallies since Georgian Dream made its shock announcement that it will shelve EU accession talks.

- Pro-EU -

Moving Tbilisi closer to Europe has been a lifelong goal for Zurabishvili, who was not always at war with Georgian Dream.

She was elected with the support of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, Tbilisi's most powerful man and Georgian Dream's founder.

Georgians backed Zurabishvili in the polls despite her outsider status and mistakes speaking Georgian.

"It is now important to show that this country has chosen Europe," she declared after she was first elected.

"For that purpose, Georgians have elected a European woman president."

But when the government began deviating from its pro-EU path in 2022, Zurabishvili turned into Georgian Dream's most outspoken critic.

She has vetoed several controversial laws targeting civil society, independent media, and LGBTQ rights -- all of which Brussels warned would undermine Georgia's prospects of joining the EU.

Infuriated Georgian Dream lawmakers have twice failed to impeach her.

- No surrender -

Under constitutional changes pushed through by Georgian Dream in 2017, the president -- a largely ceremonial role -- will on Saturday for the first time be chosen by an electoral college instead of a popular vote.

Georgian Dream, which controls the college, has said it will elect Mikheil Kavelashvili, a far-right former footballer who once played for English side Manchester City.

Zurabishvili's mandate was to end with the next leader's inauguration on December 29. But she has called herself the "only legitimate institution in the country".

"When the elections do not reflect the will of the people, then the parliament is not legitimate, the government neither, nor the president that they are to elect," she said in November.

On the streets, Zurabishvili has emerged as the most popular politician.

"I am with you and I will remain with you," she told crowds at a recent rally to wild applause, vowing she would "not surrender" Georgia's EU path.

- 'Superwoman' -

For many protesters, Zurabishvili represents a last chance against Georgian Dream.

"We believe that only the president represents the Georgian state today," 49-year-old demonstrator Nino Zhvania told AFP.

Zurabishvili has fighting Russian influence in Georgia in her blood.

She is a descendant of Niko Nikoladze, a prominent writer who called for Georgia's independence from the Russian Empire.

Zurabishvili had a 30-year career in French diplomacy, with postings at the United Nations, Washington and Chad, before serving as France's ambassador to Tbilisi.

After the bloodless 2003 "Rose Revolution", Georgia's then-president Mikheil Saakashvili -- now in prison -- appointed her foreign minister, approving the move first with Jacques Chirac, who was then French president.

But she quickly fell foul with Saakashvili's camp, accusing it of democratic backsliding.

Thousands took to the streets to protest her dismissal in 2005, chanting: "You are our superwoman!".

In her 2006 book "A Woman for Two Countries", she wrote: "Now, I have to engage in a political battle, which has never attracted me, which I never practised, which is being imposed on me."

T.Martin--SFF