Zourabichvili pelted with eggs at Tbilisi Airport

Several unknown individuals have thrown eggs at Georgia’s self-declared interim President Salome Zourabichvili at Tbilisi International Airport upon her return to Georgia from the Munich Security Conference.

The incident took place on Tuesday morning, as Zourabichvili was leaving the airport accompanied by personal guards.

Footage of the egging was shared by local media, showing Zourabichvili being accosted by several people who were heckling her as she was leaving the airport’s arrivals terminal. At least two women can be heard telling her: ‘do you have treason in your genes?’, ‘Remember well that you are a slave’.

Zourabichvili was pelted with eggs after leaving the terminal.

Later that evening, Zourabichvili held a press briefing in which she said that she had ‘filed a complaint today and requested an investigation’ into the incident, which she called an instance of pre-organised violence orchestrated by the ruling Georgian Dream party.

‘It doesn’t matter which president they recognise, it’s the state, and it doesn’t mean that they don’t respect me, they don’t respect the state […]. In this case, I am a symbol of what Georgian Dream is fighting against — the Georgian state, Georgian traditions, Georgian politeness, they have forgotten this for a long time, they are fighting against Georgia’s image in the world’, she said.

Zourabichvili was elected with the support of the ruling party in the 2018 presidential elections, but in recent years, relations between the two have become strained.

Zourabichvili has become an outspoken critic of the ruling party’s growing authoritarianism, using her presidential veto to slow the passage of a number of key pieces of legislation.

Her official term ended in December 2024, with the Georgian Dream-led parliament electing Mikheil Kavelashvili to the post — an election widely viewed in Georgia as fraudulent and unconstitutional.

Zourabichvili vowed to remain as interim president despite Kavelashvili’s election.

‘How weak you must be to come to this when you are the government, but I don’t like the word “government” in this case, they are no longer the government, they are the regime’, she said. ‘The regime shows weakness when they behave like this towards an elderly woman who they don’t recognise as the president […] If this isn’t a sign of weakness, then I don’t know what is’.

Zourabichvili said that the state must ensure security for everyone, including those with different political views.

‘The state is when order is maintained, when security is maintained for everyone, even for people you don’t like for their political views. This is the state, and we are losing the state day by day’, she said.

Zourabichvili’s lawyer, Eka Beselia, has filed a lawsuit against her assailants, stating that Zourabichvili underwent medical examinations which confirmed that she had sustained injuries.

Beselia has also said that ‘there were no police officers at the scene’ as the individuals pelted Zourabichvili with eggs.

The Ambassador of Germany to Georgia, Peter Fischer, condemned the incident and expressed solidarity with Zourabichvili in an X post. He tagged TAV Airports Holding, a Turkish airport operation and services firm in charge of the airport in Tbilisi, asking them: ‘is this place safe? Will there be consequences?’

Fischer noted that this was the second attack on a passenger at the airport in two days, in a reference to a similar incident involving opposition leader Giorgi Gakharia.

Gakharia, a former Georgian Dream prime minister and the current leader of the opposition For Georgia party, and his colleague, Elguja Khokrishvili, were also pelted with eggs at the airport upon their return from the Munich Security Conference on Monday.

The video footage showed Gakharia, along with Khorkishvili, being followed by people who were asking in a derogatory manner, ‘are you no longer funded by USAID?’, ‘Are you no longer a salesman, an unprincipled agent?’, before pelting them eggs.

Gakharia pelted with eggs at Tbilisi International Airport

Giorgi Gakharia split with the ruling Georgian Dream party in 2021.

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