Salomé Zourabichvili affirms that she will not resign while the inauguration of the new president, Mikhail Kavelashvili, is to take place on Sunday.
The current Georgian president joined thousands of demonstrators in the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, on Saturday, exactly one month after the opposition protests began.
Salomé Zourabichvili said she contested the results of October’s parliamentary elections and would remain in office.
She is calling for a new vote, saying the elections were manipulated by Russian interference.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitored the elections, also questioned them.
“Many of the issues identified in our final report negatively impacted the integrity of these elections and eroded public confidence in the process”Eoghan Murphy, who led the OSCE election observation mission, said on December 20.
In Tbilisi, protesters attempted to form a human chain snaking across the capital’s eight bridges spanning the Kura River.
Protests also took place in other cities on Saturday against Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze.
The pro-Russia ruling Georgian Dream party was founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. On Friday, the United States imposed new sanctions against him, saying he was undermining his country’s democracy for the benefit of Russia.
The protests began on November 28 after Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia was postponing its bid to join the European Union until 2028.
