Parliament Speaker blames President for ‘threatening bloodshed’ through engaging with ‘foreign actors’

Shalva Papuashvili, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, on Monday criticized President Salome Zourabichvili accusing her of inciting potential bloodshed and collaborating with foreign forces to destabilize the country.

During a briefing, Papuashvili condemned the President’s remarks, which said she did not recognise a new president elected last week and demanded a general election rerun, calling the latter “rigged”.

“We have seen many bad things during our independence, but this is the first time we have witnessed the current President of Georgia threatening the population with bloodshed,” Papuashvili said, calling the President’s statements a direct threat to the Georgian people if they did not support new elections.

Papuashvili also accused the President of undermining the country’s political institutions and fueling unrest with the assistance of external forces. He claimed that her actions mirrored the tactics of previous “foreign-backed” efforts to influence Georgia’s political landscape, referring to the return of Mikheil Saakashvili, the former President, from Ukraine to Georgia ahead of the 2021 local elections.