Crowds dispersed as Georgian capital sees fourth night of pro-EU protests

Police in the Georgian capital Tbilisi have forcibly dispersed crowds protesting against the government’s decision to suspend talks on the country’s further integration with the EU for the fourth successive night.

Riot police used tear gas and water cannons on the crowd gathered outside the parliament building in the early hours of Monday morning, as they did on the previous three nights. The protesters, many of whom were wearing helmets and gas masks, responded by firing fireworks at police and building barricades.

Georgia’s Interior Ministry said 224 people had been detained in total over the four nights of protests, with 21 police officers injured.

The protests were sparked by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s announcement on Thursday that Tbilisi would suspend talks on the country’s future EU membership and refuse budgetary grants from the bloc until the end of 2028, when it would be “adequately economically prepared to open negotiations for accession to the European Union in 2030”.

In late October, the increasingly pro-Russian ruling party, Georgian Dream, was announced the winner of the country’s parliamentary elections, prompting allegation of voter fraud from all four pro-European opposition parties, who subsequently refused to recognise the election results and announced that they would boycott the new parliament.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who joined the protest on Thursday evening, called Georgian Dream’s decision to suspend EU accession talks the culmination of a “constitutional coup unfolding for weeks” and said that the government had declared “war” on its people by taking Georgia “from Europe towards Russia”.

Georgian Dream has since announced that a presidential election will be held on 14 December, with former footballer Mikhail Kavelashvili, known for his anti-Western statements, nominated for the post. This is the first time the president will be chosen by an electoral college, where the ruling party has a majority, rather than by a popular vote.

On Saturday Zourabichvili, whose presidential term ends in December, rejected the idea that what she called the country’s “illegitimate parliament” would have the right to elect a new president, and pledged to remain in the largely ceremonial position until a legitimate parliament had been convened.