Tbilisi
\nMikheil Kavelashvili has been sworn in as Georgian president in a ceremony in Parliament in the capital Tbilisi, amid weeks of protests and the refusal of his pro-Western predecessor to stand aside.
\nOutgoing President Salome Zourabichvili said on Sunday in a defiant speech to hundreds of supporters outside the presidential palace that she was leaving the residence but remained the legitimate officeholder.
\n\u201cThis parody, which is currently being played out in parliament, is a genuine parody that the country has not deserved,\u201d Zourabichvili said.
\nShe added that Kavelashvili was not duly picked, as the legislators who chose him were elected in an October parliamentary election that she says was marked by fraud.
\nThe pro-European Union leader and protesters are demanding a new vote to replace the election in question.
\nThe Georgian Dream governing party and the country\u2019s election commission say the October election was free and fair.
\nKavelashvili, a 53-year-old former national footballer, took his oath on the Bible and the Georgian constitution, swearing to serve the country\u2019s interests amid a political crisis.
\nAccording to local media reports, there were no significant protests outside the parliamentary buildings while Kavelashvili was being sworn in.
\nDuly elected president
\nThe governing party, which controls the parliament, also says Kavelashvili is the duly elected president.
\nThe Georgian Dream party had threatened Zourabichvili with prison if she refused to leave the presidential residence in the centre of Tbilisi.
\nThe government led by Georgian Dream froze EU application talks in a move that prompted great protests.
\nGeorgian Dream\u2019s opponents accuse it of steering Tbilisi towards Moscow rather than towards the Caucasus country\u2019s longstanding goal of joining the EU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tbilisi Mikheil Kavelashvili has been sworn in as Georgian president in a ceremony in Parliament in the capital Tbilisi, amid weeks of protests and the refusal of his pro-Western predecessor to stand aside. Outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili said on Sunday in a defiant speech to hundreds of supporters outside the presidential palace that she was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":74907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74916,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74900\/revisions\/74916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}