Nino Burjanadze

Nino Burjanadze (2019)

Nino Burjanadze ( Georgian ნინო ბურჯანაძე ; born July 16, 1964 in Kutaisi ) is a Georgian politician ( Democratic Movement - United Georgia ). She is a professor of international law and from November 2001 to May 2008 she was the first woman in the history of Georgia's parliament to be President. From November 2003 to January 2004 and from November 2007 to January 2008 she served as Georgian President.

Life

Youth and Studies

She was born as the daughter of Ansor Burjanadze, who was director of the state bread combine in Soviet times and became a millionaire after 1991 by securing a monopoly in the grain trade. After attending the Akaki Tsereteli School in Kutaisi, she graduated from high school in 1981.

She studied law at the Tbilisi State University . After graduating with commendation in 1986, she studied at the Faculty of International Law at Moscow's Lomonosov University until 1989 . In 1990 she wrote her dissertation on “Problematic Aspects of International Organizations and International Shipping Law” . In 1991 she took over the professorship for international law at the State University of Tbilisi.

From 1991 to 1992 Burjanadze worked as an advisor to the Georgian Ministry of Environmental Protection. From 1992 to 1995 she was an advisor to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Georgian Parliament.

Member of Parliament and Speaker of Parliament

Since 1995 she has been elected three times as a member of the Georgian Parliament, most recently in 2003 as a member of constituency 59, Kutaisi. From 1995 to 1998 she was deputy chairwoman of the Constitutional, Legal and Rule of Law Committee. From 1998 to 1999 chairwoman of the committee. From 2000 to 2001 Burjanadze was the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. On November 9, 2001, the Georgian Parliament elected her President of the 5th legislative term. On April 22, 2004 she was re-elected for the 6th electoral term with 159 votes against.

From 1995 to 1998 Burjanadze was chairman of the permanent parliamentary delegation to the United Kingdom, and from 1999 to 2000 he was vice chairman of the European Union- Georgia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee. From 1998 to 2000 she was rapporteur for the Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly . From 2001 to 2002 she was President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation . In 2000 she became Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

Acting President

For the parliamentary elections in 2003 she ran together with the later Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Schwania in the electoral alliance Burjanadze Democrats . After the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze in the Rose Revolution, which she led together with Mikheil Saakashvili and Zurab Schwania, she served as Georgian President from November 23, 2003 to January 25, 2004. She is a leading member of the National Movement - Democrats party , which unites the carriers of the velvet revolution.

Burjanadze regularly campaigned for parliament's rights vis-à-vis the government. In the spring of 2004 she turned against constitutional changes that gave the president more power. In autumn 2004 she asked parliament to have the courage to reject the state budget even if the president threatened to dissolve parliament.

After President Saakashvili's resignation on November 25, 2007, she was again incumbent head of state of Georgia. With the inauguration of Saakashvili, who was re-elected on January 5, 2008, the office of head of state passed back to him.

Opposition politician

In November 2007 the first cracks appeared in her relationship with President Saakashvili. She rejected the violent dissolution of the mass protests in Georgia , which he advocated, and later described this as a “big mistake” and “tragedy”. In April 2008, a profound rift was revealed between Burjanadze and the ruling party United National Movement (ENM). As a result, she no longer stood as a candidate for the parliamentary elections in Georgia in 2008 . According to their own statements, they could not influence the composition of the ENM candidate list: "I tried to bring those new faces onto the candidate list who, in my opinion, would be really very useful for our country, who feel committed to further important reforms, introduce new, more humane strategies. I am sure that without urgent and significant news it will be difficult in many ways to develop the country effectively. "

In July 2008 she became President of the newly established Georgian think tank Foundation for Democracy and Development (FDD), which aims to develop democratic institutions in Georgia and to have a say in important political decisions in the country. In October of the same year Burjanadze submitted a 43-point catalog of questions to the government on the causes of the Caucasus conflict in 2008 and founded a new opposition party, the Democratic Movement - United Georgia .

In July 2013, she announced that she would run as a candidate for the Georgian presidential elections. Contrary to her image as a reformer, she relied on homophobic positions in the presidential election campaign . She criticized the government for advertising homosexual tourists to vacation in Batumi on the Black Sea . That is an intolerable crime against one's own country and one's own people. For the 2016 parliamentary election, she went public with an initiative on the non-alignment of Georgia. The neutrality should be enshrined in the Constitution. This is the only way to get Russia to withdraw its soldiers from Abkhazia and South Ossetia .

Burjanadze is married and has two sons. She speaks English and Russian. She mentions gardening and skiing as her hobbies. Her husband Badri Bizadze was Deputy Prosecutor General and from February 2004 until his resignation in October 2008 he was head of the Georgian Border Guard .

Awards

Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili transferred a 31,696 square meter government property with a residential building in the Tbilisi suburb of Zkneti by decree in May 2008 . According to the decree, she received the property and house for the symbolic price of a Georgian Lari in recognition of her services to "the development of parliamentarism and democracy in Georgia" . The building had served her as an official residence in the office of the President of Parliament since 2001.

literature

• Andreas P. Pittler: Nino Burjanadze . In: Helena Verdel, Traude Kogoj: The 100 most important women in Eastern Europe . Wieser, Klagenfurt 2003, ISBN 3-85129-421-1
• Zurab Karumidze, James V. Wert: "Enough!": The Rose Revolution in the Republic of Georgia 2003 . Nova Science Publications, New York 2005, ISBN 1-59454-210-4

See also

• List of female heads of state and government

Web links

Commons : Nino Burjanadze  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Parliament of Georgia: Website of the President of the Georgian Parliament
• Parliament of Georgia: Official curriculum vitae of Nino Burjanadze (en, ge)
• Deutsche Welle: Interview with Nino Burdschadze on the anniversary of the Rose Revolution in Georgia (de) ( Memento from December 28, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
• CV at the Caucasian Knot

Individual evidence

1. ^ Civil Georgia: Saakashvili Steps Down, as Parliament Calls for Early Polls, November 25, 2007.
2. ↑ Civil Georgia: Burjanadze Speaks of Her Plans, June 22, 2008.
3. ^ Transitions online: An Iron Lady Exits, For Now, May 16, 2008.
4. ^ Civil Georgia: Burjanadze Launches Foundation ( September 3, 2008 memento in the Internet Archive ) July 7, 2008.
5. ^ Civil Georgia: Burjanadze Prepares 43 Questions for Georgian Government, October 1, 2008.
6. ^ Civil Georgia: Burjanadze Launches Party, October 27, 2008.
7. ^ Civil Georgia: Burjanadze Runs for President, June 13, 2013.
8. ↑ Gay Batumi: Outing Homophobes: Nino Burjanadze, July 10, 2013.
9. ^ Civil Georgia: Burjanadze's Party Calls for 'Non-Bloc Status' for Georgia, June 30, 2016.
10. ↑ Democracy & Freedom Watch: Ivanishvili blasts Burjanadze: Your non-bloc idea is a bluff of September 13, 2016.
11. ↑ Civil Georgia: Burjanadze to Present Foundation  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   dated July 7, 2008.