TBILISI. Feb 6 (Interfax) - Georgia's ruling party Georgian Dream and the government that it has formed are not ceasing attempts to change the country's Euro-Atlantic course, President Salome Zourabichvili said.
"Distancing ourselves from Europe and the EU and worsening relations with Ukraine even more at a critical moment with regard to our foreign policy course raised a lot of questions," Zourabichvili said in an annual state-of-the-nation address to the parliament on Tuesday.
Despite those "dubious steps by the authorities, Georgia won and was granted European Union candidate country status," she said.
"Society didn't give up, fought, and defended its future," Zourabichvili said.
She said Bidzina Ivanishvili, the Georgian Dream party's honorary chairman, is real ruler of Georgia.
"Neither the premier, nor the parliament, but Bidzina Ivanishvili is governing the country, and therefore, I am addressing him. Society is fully entitled to hear from you what you meant exactly while recently returning to politics and speaking about corruption in Georgia and its foreign political course," Zourabichvili said.
Georgian society also wishes to learn from Ivanishvili why Irakli Garibashvili was relieved from the prime ministerial office and replaced by Irakli Kobakhidze last week, she said.
"As society is expecting a new European governance model, it is supposed to know how you're going to switch from a single-party, personal, vertical model to a democratic European model," Zourabichvili said.
Against this backdrop, Russia is continuing a hybrid war against Georgia, Zourabichvili said. "The hybrid war category embraces the mass Russian immigration, which has had both a good and a bad effect on Georgia's economy and ultimately made Georgia more dependent on Russian money and the Russian market," she said.
Among other elements of what she described as Russia's hybrid war against Georgia, Zourabichvili also listed the resumption of commercial flights between the two countries, a Russian cruise liner's call at the Batumi port, and the display of an icon depicting Joseph Stalin at Georgia's main cathedral.
"All of this is aimed at destabilizing Georgia," she said.
The rift between Georgian Dream and Zourabichvili began widening in 2023, when the president accused the ruling party and the executive branch of diverting from the political course of Georgia's Euro-Atlantic integration in favor of closer ties with Russia.
In October 2023, Georgian Dream unsuccessfully tried to launch Zourabichvili's impeachment procedure, accusing her of abusing presidential powers.