00:00DW reporter Anja Koch is on the ground for us in Tbilisi.
00:05Anja, tell us a bit more about Mikel Kavalashvili and why he is seen as controversial by many.
00:15Well, if you ask people in Tbilisi on a street like this, the first thing they will tell you about the new president is
00:21he used to be a soccer player.
00:23And why is that important? It is important because it's something that makes many people angry,
00:28at least those who oppose him, because they feel that this is basically the only qualification that he has.
00:35And they say, listen, a new president running this country, he should at least have some higher education.
00:41He does have, however, political experience.
00:45He has been a member of the Georgian parliament, as a member of the ruling Georgian Dream Party since 2016.
00:54But he's also a known member of a far-right political movement, a movement that is known for anti-Western, Kremlin-friendly rhetoric.
01:05And he's not only controversial as a person, but what's also controversial about him is how he actually got into the job.
01:13For the very first time here in Georgia, the president was not elected directly by the Georgian people, but by an electoral college.
01:22Now, half of those members of this electoral college come from the parliament.
01:28However, the question still looming in Georgia is if that parliament is actually legitimate.
01:34It was elected in late October, and there have been reports about massive fraud.
01:40So the people opposing the president, they will say, listen, the parliament is not legitimate,
01:46and then the electoral college is not legitimate.
01:49So the president then cannot be legitimate either.
01:53Kavalashvili gave his inauguration speech just this morning.
01:58What did he say?
02:02Well, interestingly, he did not give any idea or outline on what he thinks the political future of Georgia looks like
02:11or what he would like to do when he's in office.
02:14Instead, he focused, he centered his speech on what he calls traditional Georgian families and family values,
02:22saying that those Georgian traditional families, as he puts it, are at the core of the Georgian society.
02:30Now, this comes just weeks after the implementation of a so-called anti-LGBTQ propaganda law,
02:38a law that the government says is aimed at strengthening those what they call traditional families.
02:44But the queer community, of course, they fear that this law is meant to target their ways of living.
02:51Now, the outgoing president, Salome Surabishvili, is refusing to step down.
02:57What happens next?
03:02Exactly. She is refusing to step down because she is following this argument that when the parliament is not legitimate,
03:09then the electoral college is not legitimate, then the incoming president is not either.
03:14So she says she is the only legitimate figure in Georgia at the moment.
03:18There have been rumors in the past weeks that she could refuse to leave the presidential palace here in Tbilisi.
03:26Now, she gave a statement this morning saying that this is not what she's going to do.
03:30She is going to leave the palace because she says that the presidency itself is not tied to a building.
03:37She says she will leave the building, but she will remain the legitimate president of Georgia
03:43because she feels that the presidency comes with the trust of the people, and she feels she has that trust.
03:49Anja Koch there reporting from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.
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