Former Premier League footballer voted president of Georgia
A former Premier League footballer has been appointed president of Georgia amid heightening tensions over the country’s relationship with Russia.
Mikheil Kavelashvili, 53, was a striker for Manchester City between 1996 and 1997, and later played for several clubs in the Swiss Super League.
He was elected to parliament in 2016, and in 2022 co-founded the People’s Power political movement – a splinter group of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
Mr Kavelashvili playing for Manchester City in August 1996 against Ipswich Town. Pic: Reuters
Mr Kavelashvili has strong anti-Western, often conspiratorial views. His election to the mostly ceremonial role sets him up to replace a pro-Western incumbent after weeks of protests against the government’s suspension of European Union accession talks.
The ex-footballer was also one of the authors of a controversial law requiring organisations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power” – similar to a Russian law used to discredit organisations critical of the government.
Mr Kavelashvili easily won the presidential vote as Georgian Dream controls a 300-seat electoral college that replaced direct presidential elections in 2017. It is made up of members of parliament, municipal councils and regional legislatures.
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Hundreds protest outside Georgian parliament
Protesters gathered outside Tbilisi’s parliament building in freezing conditions after Mr Kavelashvili’s appointment on Saturday morning.
Many brought their university diplomas with them – after criticism that Mr Kavelashvili lacks higher education – while others kicked footballs and waved red cards.
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‘This act of appointment has nothing to do with legitimacy,’ says Georgia’s former minister of EU integration.
Protester Vezi Kokhodze described today’s vote as “treason” against what he said was Georgians’ desire to integrate with the West.
“Today’s election represents the clear wish of the system to bring Georgia back to its Soviet roots,” he said.
Another protester, Sandro Samkharadze, said: “[Kavelashvili] is not elected by us. He is controlled by a puppet government, by [ex-prime minister] Bidzina Ivanishvili, by Putin.”
Opposition supporters gathered outside the parliament this morning. Pic: Reuters
Some demonstrators turned up with EU flags. Pic: AP
Demonstrators have also vowed that the protests will continue. “If [the government] wants to go to Russia, they can go to Russia, because we are not going anywhere. We are staying here,” said Kato Kalatozishvili.
Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in an election on 26 October that the opposition alleges was rigged with Moscow’s help.
Georgia’s outgoing president and main pro-Western parties have since boycotted parliamentary sessions and demanded a rerun of the vote.
Georgian Dream has vowed to continue pushing toward EU accession but also wants to “reset” ties with Russia.
Critics have accused Georgian Dream – established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia – of becoming increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russian. The ruling party has denied these accusations.
Georgian Dream recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.
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Opposition in Georgia: What is happening?
Salome Zourabichvili, a pro-Western politician, has been president since 2018 and has vowed to stay on after her six-year term ends on Monday, describing herself as the only legitimate leader until a new election is held.
In a post on X shortly before the vote, she said her successor’s election represented “a mockery of democracy”.
Georgian Dream’s move to freeze the EU accession process until 2028, abruptly halting a long-standing national goal that is written into the country’s constitution, has provoked widespread anger across the country. Opinion polls show that EU membership is overwhelmingly popular.
Protests erupted after the government suspended negotiations on joining the EU. Pic: AP
Thousands have gathered outside parliament every night since the suspension of EU talks on 28 November, with riot police using water cannons and tear gas to disperse crowds. Officers have also assaulted demonstrators and journalists.
The government has repeatedly said the protests represent an attempt to stage a pro-EU revolution and a violent seizure of power, with police detaining hundreds of protesters.
On Friday, parliament approved sweeping new restrictions on protests, hiking fines for participants and organisers, and banning face coverings, fireworks and lasers used to dazzle police officers, at rallies.
The EU, which granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 on condition the country meets the bloc’s recommendations, put its accession on hold and cut financial support in June following approval of the foreign influence law.
Georgia was seen for decades as one of the most pro-Western and democratic of the Soviet Union’s successor states, but relations with the West have soured this year over the country’s apparent foreign policy pivot and authoritarian drift.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Georgian Dream has moved to improve ties with Russia, which ruled Georgia for 200 years until 1991.
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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