Deposed by a Parliament and party she claims were installed through “rigged elections,” Salome Zourabichvili, Georgia’s fifth president, has expressed disappointment with the Biden administration’s policy response.
Amid the ongoing crisis gripping her country, she voiced hope for a positive reaction from President Donald Trump.
Before a group of reporters in Washington Wednesday morning, Zourabichvili, 72, spelled out her concerns about Russia enhancing its strength in Eastern Europe through what she called “costless victories”— that is, using money and underhanded tactics to “steal” elections for pro-Vladimir Putin candidates and thus “retake the region.”
“They nearly did so in Moldova [last year],” she said, adding that her own country’s election was flawed and fraudulent.
In elections watched worldwide last October, the Georgian Dream Party rolled up a handsome majority in the Parliament with 54.09% of the vote — an outcome Zourabichvili and others insist was fraudulent because of widespread voter tampering. Georgian Dream’s billionaire leader Bidzina Ivanishvili and his followers in Parliament subsequently orchestrated the replacement of Zourabichvili by onetime soccer player Mikheil Kavelashvili.
For her part, Zourabichvili insisted the election and her replacement are “illegitimate” and objects to being referred to as “former president.”
“The previous administration, despite its priority on democracy, did not do anything for Georgia,” said Zourabichvili, who met with reporters in Washington, D.C. Wednesday morning, noting that despite mounting evidence of widespread fraud in the parliamentary elections last October, “they waited until Dec. 29 to impose sanctions.”
Moreover, Zourabichvili said, “there was not a single visit to Georgia by [Secretary of State] Antony Blinken, and, since her election in 2016, I could not get a single call back from the vice president [Kamala Harris].”
She did, however, voice hope for Georgia from the incoming administration. Trump, with whom Zourabichvili had a cordial first-time meeting at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris last month, “must be considered a friend of Georgia. He’s been to Georgia and had a good experience there.”
During her trip to Trump’s inauguration (where the Georgian was the guest of South Carolina’s Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, one of her country’s strongest supporters in Congress), Zourabichvili had a private meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. While the meeting was cordial, she said, “Sanctions against [Putin’s allies in Georgia] have not yet been announced.”
Regarding reports of Trump’s cordial relationship with Putin and rumors he might reduce U.S. support for Ukraine, Zourabichvili said, “Russia cannot win the war in Ukraine. [Failure to support Ukraine] would be a major retreat for the U.S. You have to realize what’s at stake here.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.