# Salome Zourabichvili The French-born career diplomat who served as **President of Georgia from 2018 to 2024** and then became the unlikely figurehead of the country's pro-European protest movement. Initially backed by the ruling **[[Georgian Dream]]** party, she broke decisively with it over its drift away from the EU and toward Moscow — turning the largely ceremonial presidency into a platform of democratic opposition. ## The disputed election and the standoff In **October 2024**, Georgian Dream claimed victory in parliamentary elections that the opposition and international observers said were neither free nor fair. Zourabichvili refused to recognize the result, filed suit at the Constitutional Court to annul it, and declared the new parliament illegitimate. When Georgian Dream installed **[[Mikheil Kavelashvili]]** as president and her term formally ended in late December 2024, she **left the Orbeliani presidential palace while insisting she remained the country's only legitimately elected official** — a deliberate echo of contested-legitimacy standoffs elsewhere. ## Figurehead of a long protest Georgia has since seen one of the longest sustained protest waves in its modern history — by Independence Day 2026, demonstrations had passed their 180th consecutive day — against a government accused of capturing institutions, raiding independent media, jailing activists, and (per the country's own Public Defender) systematically mistreating detainees. Zourabichvili has remained at the front of that movement, framing Georgia's choice as one between a European future and absorption into a Russian-style authoritarian orbit. ## Related - [[International Democratic Opposition Hub]] - [[Georgia (country)]] — the country page - [[Post-Soviet States]]