From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nino Burjanadze ნინო ბურჯანაძე
President of Georgia
Incumbent
Assumed office  25 November 2007
Prime Minister	Lado Gurgenidze
Preceded by	Mikheil Saakashvili
In office 23 November 2003 – 25 January 2004
Prime Minister	Avtandil Jorbenadze Zurab Zhvania
Preceded by	Eduard Shevardnadze
Succeeded by	Mikheil Saakashvili
Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia
Incumbent
Assumed office  22 March 2004
Preceded by	Zurab Zhvania
Born	16 July 1964 (1964-07-16) (age 43) Kutaisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Georgian
Political party	Burjanadze-Democrats
Spouse	Badri Bitsadze

Nino Burjanadze (IPA: [nɪnɔ bʊrdʒanadzɛ], Georgian: ნინო ბურჯანაძე) (surname sometimes transliterated in English as Burdzhanadze or Burdjanadze), (b. July 16, 1964) is a Georgian politician and Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia. Since November 25, 2007 she is the acting head of state of Georgia.

Nino Burjanadze was born in Kutaisi, Georgia. She graduated in 1986 from the Faculty of Law of the Tbilisi State University (TSU) and afterwards pursued education at the Moscow State University. She graduated with a doctorate in International Law in 1990. Since 1991 she has been an Associate Professor of the Faculty of International Law of the Tbilisi State University. As a member of the post-Rose Revolution government she supports pro-Western values and is in favour of Georgian integration in the European Union and NATO.^[1]

First elected to the parliament of Georgia in 1995, Burjanadze has been a Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly since 2000. In 2001-2002 Burjanadze was a President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation. She was originally a member of then-President Eduard Shevardnadze's Citizen's Union of Georgia (CUG), which was also supported financially by her father Anzor Burjanadze, a wealthy businessman. Before her election as speaker, she headed the Georgian parliament's legal committee until 1999 and was subsequently the chairman of the parliamentary commission for foreign affairs. She was nominated to the post of speaker by the Union of Georgian Traditionalists faction and was later supported by several other factions.^{[citation needed]}

Although she gave Shevardnadze strong support in his dealings with foreign countries (in paarticular with Russia), she spoke out forcefully against the corruption and inefficiency of his government's domestic policy, declaring it to be "absolutely incompetent." She left the CUG in 2002, forming an opposition party called the Burjanadze-Democrats to fight the November 2003 parliamentary elections.^{[citation needed]}

After the rigged parliamentary elections of November 2, 2003 she joined other opposition leaders in denouncing the election results and urging mass demonstrations against Shevardnadze. The terms of the Georgian constitution automatically made her the acting president when Shevardnadze resigned on November 23. One of Burjanadze's first actions was to appeal for national unity and repeal the state of emergency declared by Shevardnadze, in an effort to restore stability to a country with a long history of political violence. She was an obvious candidate for the post, as she is widely respected by her compatriots - opinion polling in 2003 showed her to be one of Georgia's three most popular political figures.^{[citation needed]}

On January 4, 2004 Mikhail Saakashvili won the pre-term presidential elections in Georgia with an overwhelming majority. He was inaugurated on January 25, 2004. A new Parliament was elected on March 28, 2004, with Burjanadze resuming her old post as Speaker with effect from April 22, 2004.^{[citation needed]}

Following a political crisis in late 2007, Saakashvili called new parliamentary and presidential elections for January 2008. In order to contest the presidential election, Saakashvili indicated an intention to resign on 25 November 2007, with Nino Burjanadze becoming acting president for the second time, until the election.^[2]

Burjanadze is married to Badri Bitsadze, who was until February 2004 Georgia's deputy Prosecutor General, but who is now head of the State Department of Georgian State Border Defense (border guards). They have two sons.^{[citation needed]}

Main article: Georgia-Russia spying dispute

Burjanadze, commenting on the Georgia-Russia spying dispute on 28 September, 2006 said, "Georgia is a state which has the power to protect its state interests, and its state secrets. [These interests] should be honored by any other state, regardless of how big it is."^[3]