Georgia’s governing party, Georgian Dream, has commenced impeachment procedures against President Salome Zourabichvili, citing supposed constitutional violations as justification, as reported by Interpress News. These actions come following Zourabichvili’s decision to disregard warnings from the ruling party by seeking a meeting with the European Council president in Brussels to gain support for Georgia’s assimilation into the European Union.
Irakli Kobakhidze, Chairman of the Georgian Dream, stated that Georgia’s Constitution presents impeachment as the sole effective legal mechanism to respond to its breach. The implementation of the impeachment procedure requires support from 100 members of Parliament. Kobakhidze affirmed that they would collect the required signatures in the coming days before forwarding the requisite constitutional submission to the Constitutional Court.
However, any formal impeachment demands votes from opposition parties, casting a shadow over the potential success of the impeachment procedure. Georgia’s largest opposition party, the United National Movement (UNM), declared that they won’t “participate in these Russian games,” expressing concerns over internal issues such as the devastating landslide in Shovi.
Critics of the impeachment decision include European Parliamentarians, who have voiced concerns over its potential to draw public attention away from pressing issues. Georgia’s political scene has experienced tensions between the governing party and the president before, with Georgian Dream’s then-Chairman Mamuka Mdinaradze lodging a lawsuit in 2022 concerning Zourabichvili’s foreign visits.
In a controversial move, the ruling party had to retract an unpopular ‘foreign agent’ bill following a series of civil and international protests in 2023. Zourabichvili openly condemned this, stating it would “steal Georgia’s future” and obstruct the development of strong ties with the EU. Georgia Dream’s repudiation of Zourabichvili’s pro-EU stance was evident when it withdrew unilaterally from the EU’s 19 April agreement in 2021.