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Former Man City player elected Georgian president | |
(33 minutes later) | |
Mikhail Kavelashvili’s candidacy has been supported by over 200 MPs out of 300 | |
The Georgian parliament has voted to appoint former Manchester City player Mikhail Kavelashvili, whose party is a member of the ruling coalition, the new president of the country. | |
Kavelashvili’s candidacy has been supported by 224 legislators out of 300. The 53-year-old was the only candidate considered. | |
Georgia is a parliamentary republic, in which the prime minister and government wield executive power, while the president’s role is ceremonial. | |
The pro-EU opposition, which had been protesting since the ruling Georgian Dream party achieved a landslide victory in the parliamentary election in October, has said that it refuses to recognize the results of the presidential vote. | |
Demonstrators, carrying Georgian and EU flags, began gathering in the center of the capital in the morning. They were heard chanting, “Salome! Salome!,” which is the name of Georgia’s outgoing pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili. | |
Zourabichvili told Radio France Internationale earlier this week that she has no intention of leaving the presidential palace despite her term officially expiring on Monday. “When a new president is legitimately chosen through an election, I will gladly give up my seat to him,” she said. | |
This is the first time that the Georgian president is being elected by MPs instead of via a popular vote. |