Far right, anti-western politician Mikheil Kavelashvili has been sworn in as Georgia's new president. Outgoing President Salome Zurabishvili has announced that she will vacate the presidential palace but does not recognize Kavelashvili’s election as legitimate. DW's Anja Koch from Tbilisi.
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00:00DW reporter Anja Koch is on the ground for us in Tbilisi.
00:05Anja, tell us a bit more about Mikel Kavalashvili and why he is seen as controversial by many.
00:15Well, if you ask people in Tbilisi on a street like this, the first thing they will tell you about the new president is
00:21he used to be a soccer player.
00:23And why is that important? It is important because it's something that makes many people angry,
00:28at least those who oppose him, because they feel that this is basically the only qualification that he has.
00:35And they say, listen, a new president running this country, he should at least have some higher education.
00:41He does have, however, political experience.
00:45He has been a member of the Georgian parliament, as a member of the ruling Georgian Dream Party since 2016.
00:54But he's also a known member of a far-right political movement, a movement that is known for anti-Western, Kremlin-friendly rhetoric.
01:05And he's not only controversial as a person, but what's also controversial about him is how he actually got into the job.
01:13For the very first time here in Georgia, the president was not elected directly by the Georgian people, but by an electoral college.
01:22Now, half of those members of this electoral college come from the parliament.
01:28However, the question still looming in Georgia is if that parliament is actually legitimate.
01:34It was elected in late October, and there have been reports about massive fraud.
01:40So the people opposing the president, they will say, listen, the parliament is not legitimate,
01:46and then the electoral college is not legitimate.
01:49So the president then cannot be legitimate either.
01:53Kavalashvili gave his inauguration speech just this morning.
01:58What did he say?
02:02Well, interestingly, he did not give any idea or outline on what he thinks the political future of Georgia looks like
02:11or what he would like to do when he's in office.
02:14Instead, he focused, he centered his speech on what he calls traditional Georgian families and family values,
02:22saying that those Georgian traditional families, as he puts it, are at the core of the Georgian society.
02:30Now, this comes just weeks after the implementation of a so-called anti-LGBTQ propaganda law,
02:38a law that the government says is aimed at strengthening those what they call traditional families.
02:44But the queer community, of course, they fear that this law is meant to target their ways of living.
02:51Now, the outgoing president, Salome Surabishvili, is refusing to step down.
02:57What happens next?
03:02Exactly. She is refusing to step down because she is following this argument that when the parliament is not legitimate,
03:09then the electoral college is not legitimate, then the incoming president is not either.
03:14So she says she is the only legitimate figure in Georgia at the moment.
03:18There have been rumors in the past weeks that she could refuse to leave the presidential palace here in Tbilisi.
03:26Now, she gave a statement this morning saying that this is not what she's going to do.
03:30She is going to leave the palace because she says that the presidency itself is not tied to a building.
03:37She says she will leave the building, but she will remain the legitimate president of Georgia
03:43because she feels that the presidency comes with the trust of the people, and she feels she has that trust.
03:49Anja Koch there reporting from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.