The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vuçiq, has congratulated his counterpart from Georgia, Mikhail Kavelashvili, who today was elected to this position as the only candidate, amid protests and opposition from the pro-European wing, due to the rapprochement of official Tbilisi with Russia and withdrawal from the European Union .

Vuçiq has assured Kavelashvili, a harsh critic of the West, that Serbia will be "a reliable partner and friend of Georgia in joint efforts for peace, stability and cooperation".

"I congratulate you on your election as the president of Georgia with sincere wishes that you successfully and prudently carry out your honorable duties. I am convinced that you will justify the trust given to you with your tireless commitment to the well-being of the citizens of Georgia. I invite you to visit friendly Serbia, which would create an additional momentum to strengthen our general relations", says the congratulation.

The only nominated candidate, a former member of the ruling party and former Manchester City footballer (1996-1999) was elected today by the Parliament of Georgia as president.

The presidents of Georgia are elected by an electoral college consisting of parliamentarians and representatives of local authorities. Out of 225 electors present, 224 of them voted for Kavelishvili.

The opposition has boycotted the parliament since the announcement of the official election results in which the Georgian Dream won 54 percent of the votes. The opposition claims that this is the result of electoral fraud. They accuse Kavelashvili of being a "puppet" of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia.

Georgia, a country in the South Caucasus with 3.7 million inhabitants, has the country's EU membership written into its Constitution and is the most pro-Western of all the former Soviet republics.

The EU granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023, but has criticized several laws pushed by Georgian Dream, including one that requires organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as "agents of influence foreigners" and an LGBTQ rights law that Brussels considers authoritarian and Russian-inspired.

Following the passage of these laws, Georgia's path to the EU is "practically frozen," EU Ambassador to Georgia Pawel Herczynski said in June.

Kavelashvili has repeatedly said that Western intelligence services are trying to push Georgia into war with Russia.

The 53-year-old entered politics in 2016, becoming an MP for the Georgian Dream party. He left the party in 2022 and co-founded the far-right party Narodna Shakta, which many consider a satellite of the Georgian Dream.

The opposition parties have announced that they will continue to consider Salome Zourabishvili as president even after the inauguration of Kalevishvili on December 29.

On December 1, the US announced that it was ending its strategic partnership with Georgia due to the decision to postpone the country's EU membership until 2028.

More than 400 people have been arrested since protests began in late November, after the government announced it would delay EU accession. The EU's ambassador to Georgia said this week that police treatment of protesters was unacceptable and could trigger sanctions from Brussels.