Georgia's billionaire political power broker Bidzina Ivanishvili has introduced a Euroskeptic former soccer player as his ruling party's nominee for a disputed presidential vote next month, despite mounting constitutional disagreements and a post-parliamentary election boycott in the Caucasus nation.
The nomination of Mikheil Kavelashvili came hours into a new legislative session dominated by the ruling Georgian Dream party -- which Ivanishvili founded -- that the current president, Salome Zurabishvili, contends is unconstitutional because of alleged flaws in last month's parliamentary vote.
The fractured opposition disputes the results and sought to nullify the seating of legislators in order to spark a constitutional impasse.
The Georgian Dream claimed victory with 88 seats in the 150-seat parliament after voting on October 26, suggesting it will try to steamroll opposition to put the fiery 53-year-old former international footballer and right-wing populist lawmaker Kavelashvili in the presidency.
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Kavelashvili is one of the founders of a 2-year-old, anti-Western offshoot of the Georgian Dream party called People's Power.
His party introduced a draft law on "foreign agents" in 2023 that sparked massive protests before it was withdrawn and replaced earlier this year with a slightly reworded bill to curb "foreign influence" at nongovernment groups.
Amid this year's protests against the polarizing so-called Russian law, Kavelashvili invoked Georgia's "civil war started in the '90s" to accuse its opponents -- including current Georgian international soccer great Khvicha Kvaratskhelia -- of stoking violence.
The law was eventually enacted when lawmakers overrode Zurabishvili's veto.
The looming presidential vote is the country's first under a 2017 change from a direct to an indirect vote by an electoral college for the head of state, a largely ceremonial post that Zurabishvili has used to oppose what Georgian critics decry as a "Russian law."
Zurabishvili has called the legislature that emerged from the October elections "unconstitutional" and appealed to the Constitutional Court for their annulment over alleged Russian influence and fraud.
The European Union has stalled Tbilisi's bid to join the bloc, while the United States has vowed to "revise" its relations with Georgia over the law and other recent moves by the Georgian Dream-led government.
SEE ALSO: Wider Europe Briefing: NATO Braces For An Unpredictable 2025Zurabishvili has accused the ruling party of "capturing" Georgia and diverting it from its pro-EU path, a goal that is enshrined in the constitution and supported by an overwhelming majority of around 80 percent of Georgians, and toward Russia instead.
Georgian Dream lawmakers voted on November 26 to hold the presidential election on December 14, a move some experts say is illegal until the courts rule on Zurabishvili's and other postelection challenges.
Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia and is the influential honorary chairman of Georgian Dream, called Kavelashvili "the best embodiment of a Georgian man" when he introduced him as the party's presidential choice the same day.
In a pointed shot at Zurabishvili, who has fallen out dramatically with Georgian Dream since that party nominated her to the presidency in 2018, Ivanishvili said Kavelashvili would "fully restore the dignity temporarily taken from the institution of the presidency."
In accepting the disputed nomination, Kavelashvili accused Zurabishvili of having "insulted and neglected" the Georgian Constitution and that she "continues to violate it today."
Detractors have pointed out Kavelashvili's apparent lack of a university degree, or at least the absence of any information about it in his official parliamentary profile.
In 2015, Kavelashvili filed a lawsuit seeking to cancel a provision of the national soccer federation's guidelines requiring presidents of that body to have a university degree.