TELAVI: Georgia on Sunday swore in its first female president, Salome Zurabishvili as opposition parties continue to denounce her election as fraudulent and demand snap parliamentary polls. The inauguration paved the way for a new constitution to come into force, transforming the country into a parliamentary republic with a largely ceremonial president.

Opposition parties have refused to recognise Zurabishvili’s election last month and tried to hold a protest rally outside the royal residence. But the plan was thwarted by police, who on Sunday morning blocked a kilometres-long opposition motorcade on a road leading from the capital Tbilisi to Telavi.

Zurabishvili was backed in the election by the ruling Georgian Dream party of Georgia’s ex-premier and billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili. Ivanishvili, Georgia’s richest man, stepped down as prime minister in 2013 after just a year in office but is still widely believed to be Georgia’s de facto ruler.

Zurabishvili was born in France to a Georgian family who fled the Bolshevik regime to Paris in 1921. She studied international relations at the Paris Institute of Political Sciences before a 30-year career as a French diplomat, with postings to the United Nations, Washington and Chad.

Her career in French diplomacy culminated in a posting to Tbilisi, where then-president Saakashvili appointed her as foreign minister. She was sacked in 2005 after a year on the job, though thousands took to the streets of the capital to protest her dismissal. She then joined the opposition as a member of parliament.

Published in Dawn, December 17th, 2018