Opposition lawmakers and the President have boycotted the inaugural session of the newly elected Georgian parliament.

Opposition parties refused to participate in the parliament’s activities, and only 88 lawmakers, all Georgian Dream members, were in the hall as the 150-seat parliament held its first session on Monday, November 25, 2024.

Several thousand protesters, some of them waving Georgian and EU flags, rallied outside the parliament in the pouring rain, facing phalanxes of riot police. They accused the ruling party of rigging the vote under Russian influence.

Nika Melia, leader of Coalition for Changes, vowed that the opposition “will do everything to defeat the so-called government, the self-proclaimed government.”

He added, “This is the fight between people fighting for freedom against people who are trying to entrench the deeply authoritarian regime.”

Badri Japaridze, leader of Strong Georgia Coalition, pledged that members of opposition parties elected to parliament will stay away from it. “We are not going to enter this parliament, we boycott it, we do not acknowledge it,” he said.

The October 26 election that kept the Georgian Dream party in power was widely seen as a referendum on the country’s effort to join the European Union.

The Central Election Commission said that Georgian Dream won about 54% of the vote in October. Its leaders have rejected opposition claims of fraud.

European election observers said that the balloting took place in a “divisive” atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.

Georgian Dream kept Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze in office and its members voted to allow parliament Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili to keep his seat. The ruling party also controls all key parliamentary positions.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream — established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia — of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow.

The party recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.

The EU suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely in June after parliament passed a law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.

Georgian President Calls Parliament Unconstitutional

President Salome Zourabichvili, who has rejected the official results and refused to recognize the parliament’s legitimacy, didn’t attend the opening session.

Zourabichvili, who holds the mostly ceremonial position, said on X that the parliament is unconstitutional because of evidence of electoral fraud and her refusal to open the session as required by the constitution.

She has filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court, arguing that two fundamental principles guaranteed by the constitution — the secrecy of the vote and its universality — were violated.

In a televised statement, Zourabichvili declared that “today the parliament of Georgia no longer exists” because Georgian Dream has “trampled the constitution.”

“I feel sorry for all these parliamentarians who sat there today with frozen expressions, because they know they are the result of falsified elections, and they know they will be locked in this hall for several months or weeks, where none of them has any rights.”
Salome Zourabichvili

She hailed civil society and, in particular, the youth for standing up to Georgian Dream, declaring, “The old era reflected in today’s parliament has truly come to an end.”

Zourabichvili was elected by popular vote, but Georgia has approved constitutional changes that abolish the direct election of the President and replace it with a vote by a 300-seat electoral college that consists of members of parliament, municipal councils and members of legislatures of autonomous regions.

The parliament on Tuesday is to set a date for the electoral college to vote on a new President.