The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party has nominated Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former Georgian footballer and outspoken critic of the West, as its candidate heading into next month’s presidential election. 

Kavelashvili is virtually certain to be elected since Georgian Dream enjoys a ruling majority in the 300-member electoral college that will select the next president. 

GD founder and honorary chairman, Bidzina Ivanishvili, a figure known for his anti-Western conspiracy theories, introduced his party’s nominee at a special briefing in the ruling party’s Tbilisi office on November 27, following meetings of the GD parliamentary majority and the party’s political council.

“By nature — or habitus, if you will — he is the embodiment of the ideal Georgian man. He is a devoted husband and a proud father of four children,” Ivanishvili stated at the November 27 briefing, seeming to accentuate how well suited Kavelashvili is to the role of presidential candidate for GD, a party which has pushed an increasingly conservative and traditionalist agenda in recent months. 

“There is no doubt that Mikheil Kavelashvili will not be in the service of foreign powers, but in the service of the Georgian state,” added Ivanishvili, taking a jab at current pro-European president, Salome Zourabichvili, a former GD ally who is now in open conflict with the ruling party and has become a rallying point for the Georgian opposition.

The GD founder also commended Kavelashvili’s sporting career, describing him as “a successful footballer who spend many years honourably representing Georgia”, first as a striker for Tbilisi Dinamo in the early 90s, then for the national side until 2001. The nominee has also played for clubs abroad such as Spartak Vladikavkaz in southern Russia, Switzerland’s Grasshopper, and Manchester City in the UK. 

Following Ivanishvili’s introduction, the GD nominee vowed to “do everything to unite Georgian society around our national interests, our national identity, our values, and the idea of Georgia’s independence”. 

Kavelashvili entered politics in 2016, when he represented Tbilisi’s Nadzaladevi district as a member of the GD majority. He was among the loudest voices in parliament in objecting to concern from the country’s Western partners over democratic backsliding by the Georgian government. 

Splinter group 

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kavelashvili left his MP position with several others to co-found a GD splinter group – the rightwing anti-Western People's Power faction. However, the MPs remained on the GD electoral list. 

While it continued to support the ruling party, the People’s Power movement pledged to voice more explicit opposition to the West than was appropriate for GD members to display, promising to “tell the whole truth” about Western intentions in Georgia. 

The former GD MPs who founded People’s Power declared in 2022 that the ruling party had fallen into the EU candidacy “mousetrap”, warning that Georgia would not be granted EU candidacy status by the European bloc without opening a second front of the Ukraine war on its own territory, and falling into a new military conflict with Russia. Over the next two years the group’s criticism and suspicion of the West, and specifically the US, intensified.

People’s Power has spearheaded some of the most outlandish anti-Western conspiracy disinformation and conspiracy theories, most notably initiating the “Foreign Agents” bill passed by GD in spring 2024, which triggered some of Georgia’s largest street protests to date. Kavelashvili himself was among the authors of this controversial piece of legislation, which, whilst it was framed as a tool of transparency, pushed to restrict the rights of foreign funded civil society operations in Georgia.

Notably, a record of Kavelashvili’s educational background is absent from the official parliament webpage and scepticism is appearing on social media surrounding the nominee’s qualifications. According to the news platform Politico, Kavelashvili was prevented from running as president of the Georgian Football Federation in 2025 because he has no higher education. As of yet, it remains unclear how an individual with no political credentials and little experience has secured the presidential candidate position.

Replacing Zourabichvili

The announcement of Kavelashvili’s candidacy came just 48 hours after the inaugural session of Georgia’s newly elected parliament on November 25, which saw GD take 89 out of 150 seats while the pro-Western opposition boycotted the proceedings entirely, declaring the parliamentary elections of October 26 were rigged in GD’s favour, and therefore the new parliament is illegitimate.

Following the inauguration of the new parliament, for first time in Georgia’s independent history the president will be chosen by the electoral college, which comprises the 150 members of parliament, representatives from the Supreme Councils of Abkhazia and Adjara, and local councillors.

On November 26, parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili, informed the public that the next Georgian president will be elected in parliament on December 14, two days before Zourabichvili’s term ends, and will be inaugurated on December 29.

Prominent Georgian journalist Anna Gvarishvili speculated on X that the reason Kavelashvili had been chosen was that unlike Zourabichvili and her predecessor Giorgi Margvelashvili (2013-18), Kavelashvili is not expected to rebel against Ivanishvili. 

“Mikheil Kavelashvili … is physically incapable of harbouring any ambitions, forming independent opinions, or pursuing any sort of political aspiration,” Gvarishvili argued, suggesting that Kavelashvili’s lack of education could be an advantage to the ruling party.

Gvarishvili even included the GD nominee’s most famous quote – “You don’t need [to read] books to betray your country” – adding that Kavelashvili “perfectly exemplifies” this.

After accepting his nomination on November 27, nominee Kavelashvili thanked his nominator. “I want to start by expressing my gratitude to Mr. Bidzina Ivanishvili. He is an exceptional and admirable person. I am both proud and happy to have the opportunity to work alongside him in defending our country during such a critical and challenging period.”

Like Ivanishvili, Kavelashvili also took the opportunity to criticise the outgoing president. ‘I am fully aware of the immense responsibility that comes with the position of president of Georgia, especially considering that the current president has insulted and disregarded our primary document — the constitution of Georgia — and continues to violate it to this day,” the presidential candidate said.

Opposition reacts

Meanwhile, members of Georgia’s pro-Western opposition forces have reacted to the nomination, condemning GD’s deliberate monopolisation in their hurried efforts to ensure their absolute power and influence in Georgia. 

“The last independent institution of the president is captured by Ivanishvili, [in the latest move] towards full-scale authoritarianism,” Natia Mezvrishvili, a member of the For Georgia coalition, tweeted. 

“GD nominated a member of People's Power (GD's satellite party, infamous for anti-Western, pro-Russia rhetoric), former football player, without high education diploma, author & signatory of the Russian Law — Mikheil Kavelashvili as a candidate for the president. By this insulting move both against Georgian people & Western partners, Ivanishvili is testing the patience of both the people and the West,” the politician continued, stressing just how damaging a Kavelashvili presidency would be to Georgia’s western relationships, and by extension is Euro-Atlantic aspirations.

Following Papuashvili’s November 26 announcement, the For Georgia leader and former Georgian prime minister Giorgi Gakharia held a briefing in which he appealed to Georgia’s Western partners to not attend the December 29 inauguration, and stated that his party, which won 12 seats in the October vote, would not be participating in the voting process during the presidential elections.

“Just like the first session of the parliament was held without international legitimacy and representatives of the diplomatic corps, the presidential inauguration scheduled for December 29 also should not be attended by representatives of the democratic world. Otherwise, Ivanishvili will try to use this as a means to gain legitimacy and recognition for the rigged elections, the illegal parliament, the illegal government and the illegally elected president,” Gakharia said.