Salome Zurabishvili

Salome Zurabishvili - Kaschia (Georgian სალომე ზურაბიშვილი - კაშია; French Salomé Zourabichvili; born March 18, 1952 in Paris ) is a Georgian- French politician ( Georgia's Way ). The diplomat was from March 2004 to October 2005 Georgian Foreign Minister. In March 2006, she initiated the establishment of an opposition party. In the shadow cabinet of presidential candidate Levan Gachechiladze it was designed as prime minister.

Life

French diplomat

It comes from a Georgian immigrant family who emigrated to France in 1921. Zurabishvili closed in 1972 to study at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris in 1973 and a postgraduate course in Zbigniew Brzezinski at Columbia University, New York from. In 1974 she entered the diplomatic service of France. She represented her country in the United States, Italy, Chad, at the UN in New York, NATO in Brussels and the OSCE in Vienna. From 2001 to 2003 she was Head of the Department of International and Strategic Affairs at the French Secretary General for National Defence. In November 2003, she was ambassador of France in Tbilisi.

Georgian Foreign Minister

During his visit to France on 8 March 2004, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili asked the French President, Jacques Chirac, the diplomat for the office of the Georgian Foreign Minister indemnify. Chirac agreed to Zurabishvili joined in the same month her ​​post and received in addition to her French a Georgian passport.

They wanted to build the Georgian Foreign Ministry in European style and ensure that Georgia is prepared no later than 2008 for the accession to the European Union. She received the President a free hand in selecting their employees and took strong measures against corruption in the visa and passport department. In May 2005, she acted in Moscow from a withdrawal plan for the stationed in Georgia group of the Russian forces in Transcaucasia until 2008.

The attempt to control the powerful, elected by Parliament ambassadors, failed. She was so enemies in missions abroad and in the fraction of the ruling party in parliament. As their intimate enemy was finally Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze, who is said to have seen as the most important woman in the state back from the Secretary of State.

Burjanadze called on 17 October 2005 her resignation because she had submitted to Parliament international treaties supposedly too late and not shown insightful. Two days later Zurabishvili was dismissed from office. Georgian Premier Zurab Noghaideli accused her of being dealt with Parliament on " unacceptable manner ." Zurabishvili stated, however, that she had been bullied by members of the ruling party from the first day in office to. Clan politicians had deliberately placed mines in order to out of the way.

The dismissal caused a government crisis. The then Minister of State for Conflict Resolution Giorgi Khaindrava criticized the separation publicly as a " false step ". Zurabishvili was "the most successful Foreign Minister of Georgia ," all charges against them were " incompetent and mostly wrong " was.

Opposition politician

Zurabishvili retired from the diplomatic service of France to form a new opposition movement in Georgia. In November 2005, she founded the organization Salome Surabischwilis public movement in which she gathered experts in various policy areas. On March 11, 2006, she teamed up with the MPs Gia Tortladse the political party Georgia's Way.

Your political position they referred to as center-right. She accuses President Saakashvili to have turned away from the Rose Revolution. The Georgian political system they criticized as a de facto one-party system. From other opposition politicians, however, Zurabishvili will differ in that they not only criticized the government but their own concepts submitted. As the only opposition politician greeted on 28 July 2006, the controversial police raid of the Georgian government in Abkhazia and the establishment of hitherto resident in Tbilisi Abkhaz government in exile in the Kodori Gorge. In 2007, she commented positively on the proposal to introduce a constitutional monarchy in Georgia.

With her ​​party she joined in September 2007, the opposition alliance united National Council, which nominated the presidential candidate Levan Gachechiladze. Gachechiladze intended, they propose to Parliament as Georgian Prime Minister if he would be elected. In November 2007, she supported the mass protests against the Georgian government in Tbilisi. Although Zurabishvili is highly regarded in Georgia, she could not establish themselves politically. In the municipal elections in Tbilisi on October 5, 2006, only 2.77% of the voters of the party gave their voice. Yet in April 2006, 23.1% of Georgians had declared in a weekly newspaper published by the Kwiris Palitra opinion poll, they would choose Zurabishvili as President.

Since 2008 she has Zurabishvili increasingly facing the political publication. In her 2009 book " La tragédie géorgienne " she reckoned from with President Saakashvili. His regime described it as " a parody of democracy." The President comes of the " Ancien Régime ", visited a KGB school, had long been the Crown Prince Eduard Shevardnadze. In politics he turn to Stalinist power techniques. Immediately before the parliamentary elections in Georgia, 2012, she renewed her criticism of the President, described him as a " despot ".

Awards

Zurabishvili is a member of the French Legion of Honor and was awarded the National Order of Merit of the French Republic, the Ordre national du Mérite, excellent.

Personal

Zurabishvili speaks French, Georgian, English, Italian, German and Russian. She was married in second marriage with Georgian journalists and former Soviet dissident Dschanri Kaschia and has two children from his first marriage. She even speaks to a hot temper.

Her father Levan was president of the Union of Georgians in France, her great-grandfather of the National Liberal politician Niko Nikoladze, a fellow of the Georgian national poet Ilia Chavchavadze. Her cousin is the French historian Hélène Carrère d' Encausse. The family emigrated in 1921 from Georgia. Zurabishvili visited the country for the first time in 1986.

Writings

  • Une femme pour deux pays. B. Grasset, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-246-69561-9
  • Les cicatrices of Nations. L'Europe malade de ses frontières. Bourin, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2849410752
  • La tragédie géorgienne 2003-2008. De la révolution des Roses à la guerre. B. Grasset, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-246-75391-9
  • L' Exigence démocratique. Pour un nouvel idéal politique, Bourin, Paris 2011, ISBN 978-2-84941-220-6
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