page_title: Presidency of Salome Zourabichvili
section_title: Zourabichvili's Background
hierarchical_section_title: Presidency of Salome Zourabichvili / Background / Zourabichvili's Background
caption_attribution_description: English: April 10, 2009... Opposition leaders Goga Khaindrava and Salome Zurabishvili in front of parliament building
context_page_description: The presidency of Salomé Zourabichvili is the fifth presidency of Georgia since the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and the first presidency since the adoption of a new Constitution transforming Georgia into a parliamentary system in 2018. Beginning on 16 December 2018, Zourabichvili's term is set to be the longest term of any presidency in Georgia's history, as the transition into a new Constitution means that her mandate will last until 2024.
  Salomé Zourabichvili is a former French diplomat of Georgian origins who served France's diplomatic corps until her selection as Georgia's Foreign Affairs Minister in 2004. Often a critic of bureaucratic restraints, the concentration of powers, and corruption under the leadership of Mikheil Saakashvili, she became an opposition leader in 2006, until joining the Georgian Dream political coalition as an independent member of Parliament in 2016. In 2018, she was elected in a contentious election with 60% of the vote, making her the second non-partisan President of Georgia
context_section_description: Born and raised in France from a Georgian family that emigrated to Western Europe following the Soviet takeover of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1921, Salomé Zourabichvili kept deep links with the local Georgian community, her father serving as chairman of the Georgian diaspora in Paris, a position later occupied by her brother, Otar. Attending some of the most prestigious political schools in the West, Zourabichvili graduated from the Paris-based Institute of Political Studies and studied under famed US geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski at Columbia University in 1972.
  Zourabichvili took on a foreign policy career in 1974, serving several French embassies across the world, until she was appointed during the Jacques Chirac presidency as head of the Division of International and Strategic Issues of National Defense. In 2003, Paris sent her as ambassador to Georgia during the last days of the Eduard Shevardnadze presidency, where she witnessed the Rose Revolution of November 2003 that overthrew the controversial administration of Shevardnadze and brought to power a new, Western-backed government led by Mikheil Saakashvili.
  In March 2004, while still serving as French ambassador in Tbilisi, the Georgian Parliament granted her the Georgian citizenship, allowing President Saakashvili to appoint her as Minister of Foreign Affairs, becoming the first woman to occupy that post. As Minister, she soon took on a large reform project, attempting to transition a ministry plagued with corruption and mismanagement under the chaotic years of the Shevardnadze presidency. Her attempts were often met with criticism, including by incumbent ambassadors. Zourabichvili still managed to expand Georgia's cooperation with several post-Soviet nations, leading the creation of a "New Group of Friends of Georgia" which included the Baltic States, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Czech Republic, while launching an ambitious plan to join NATO and the European community. Most notably, she oversaw the successful negotiations that led to the departure of Russian military bases from Akhalkalaki and Batumi.
  Following clashes with Parliament, Salomé Zourabichvili was sacked by Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli in October 2005, which led her to form the first real opposition party to the Saakashvili administration, The Way of Georgia. While being one of the first mainstream critics of the government, she was soon joined by a string of former government officials and business leaders that criticized President Saakashvili for what they saw as the rise of a police state, assaults on free speech, and corruption in all levels of government. While being informally selected as a potential Prime Minister under a theoretical opposition-led government, she left politics after leading a series of massive protests in Tbilisi in 2009 and taking a high-ranking position working for the United Nations.
  In 2010, Zourabichvili endorsed the newly-formed Georgian Dream, a coalition of opposition political parties led by businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili, who became Prime Minister following the 2012 legislative elections. In 2016, she was elected to Parliament as an independent, representing the Mtatsminda neighborhood of Tbilisi.
caption: Zourabichvili during an anti-Saakashvili protest in 2009.
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