Place of Birth. Education. Born in Kutaisi. In 1986 she graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Tbilisi State University named after I. Javakhishvili. PhD in Law (in 1990 she defended her dissertation on the topic “Problems of international organizations and international maritime law”).
Career. 1991-1994 – Associate Professor, Department of International Law and International Relations, Tbilisi State University. At the same time – an expert consultant of the Ministry of Ecology of Georgia, the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Georgian Parliament.
1994-1995 – Researcher at the Diplomatic Laboratory.
Since 1995 – a member of the Georgian Parliament of several convocations in a row. She was the first deputy chairman of the committee on constitutional, legal issues and legality, then (in 1998-1999) – the head of the committee.
1999-2002 – Co-Chairman of the Committee on Parliamentary Cooperation between Georgia and the European Union.
2000-2001 – Head of the parliamentary committee on foreign relations.
2001-2008 – Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia.
Twice, in November-January 2003-2004. and in November-January 2007-2008, she served as Acting President of Georgia during the presidential elections.
After she resigned as a parliamentarian in May 2008, she headed the public organization Democratic Development Fund.
Leader of a political party Democratic Movement – United Georgia.
In October year 2013 participated in presidential elections in Georgia, where she took third place, gaining a little more than 10% of the vote.
Views and assessments. She was one of the initiators of the Georgian “Rose Revolution” of 2003, which ended with the removal from power of twice Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze.
For several years she was an associate of Mikhail Saakashvili. Supported his candidacy in the 2004 elections.
Relations between Georgia’s leading politicians were cooling down and in the spring of 2008, during early parliamentary elections, they “came to a freezing point.” According to media reports, the ruling pro-presidential United National Movement party refused to approve a whole group of candidates close to the parliament speaker in the first lines of the electoral list, and allegedly Saakashvili agreed with this. After that, according to one version, Burjanadze refused to head the UNM list, according to another, she was not allowed to do so. And soon she announced her intention to leave big politics, although not everyone believed in it.
In Russia, Burjanadze’s demarche was linked to purges in Saakashvili’s entourage, hinting that Georgia is embarking on an authoritarian path. Thus, the general director of the International Institute of Political Expertise Yevgeny Minchenko noted: “He (Saakashvili, – ed.) will continue to try to concentrate power in its own hands, gradually pushing aside all politicians who claim any significant, independent role.”
After the armed conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia in August 2008, Burdzhanadze sharply condemned the president for the fact that by attacking Tskhinvali he only exacerbated an already extremely problematic situation. The ex-speaker of parliament announced that she intends to initiate an investigation and bring Saakashvili to justice for the war in South Ossetia, and called on official Tbilisi to have a dialogue with Moscow. This is despite the fact that before the events of August 2008, Burjanadze was traditionally a harsh critic of the Kremlin’s policy in the Caucasus, at the same time, not allowing incorrect and provocative forms in her assessments (unlike many other Georgian politicians, including Saakashvili himself).
Scientific activity. Author of about 20 works published in Georgian, Russian and English. Including monographs on legal issues of international intergovernmental organizations of a new type.
Family. Nino Burjanadze is married to Badri Bitsadze, her husband was the chairman of the department for protecting the state border of Georgia. The family has two sons – Anzor and Rezo.
07/15/2021