Often a critic of bureaucratic restraints, the concentration of powers, and corruption under the leadership of Mikheil Saakashvili, she became an opposition leader in 2006, until joining the Georgian Dream political coalition as an independent member of Parliament in 2016.

[5] Zourabichvili took on a foreign policy career in 1974, serving several French embassies across the world,[5] until she was appointed during the Jacques Chirac presidency as head of the Division of International and Strategic Issues of National Defense.

[11] Following clashes with Parliament,[8] Salomé Zourabichvili was sacked by Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli in October 2005,[12] which led her to form the first real opposition party to the Saakashvili administration, The Way of Georgia.

[14] While being informally selected as a potential Prime Minister under a theoretical opposition-led government,[15] she left politics after leading a series of massive protests in Tbilisi in 2009 and taking a high-ranking position working for the United Nations.

[16] In 2012, Zourabichvili endorsed the newly-formed Georgian Dream,[17] a coalition of opposition political parties led by businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili, who became Prime Minister following the 2012 legislative elections.

[22] The new Constitution was one of the most significant changes in Georgian political history and was transitioned into force under the leaderships of Prime Ministers Bidzina Ivanishvili and Irakli Garibashvili and President Giorgi Margvelashvili, who succeeded Saakashvili in 2013.

[30] Soon, the campaigns mainly coalesced around those of Bakradze and Vashadze, who shared the support of former President Saakashvili's partisans,[31] and that of Zourabichvili, who touted her foreign policy experience and her position to protect the Abkhaz language in the face of increased Russian integration of Abkhazia.

[30] Following a large discrepancy between public polls,[32] 1.6 million voters participated in the first round of the election, which saw Salomé Zourabichvili pull ahead, followed by United National Movement's Grigol Vashadze.

[44] During the transition period, Zourabichvili met with several government and foreign leaders, including EU Ambassador Carl Hartzell[45] and NATO Representative James Appathurai, reassuring her future administration's goal to pursue a pro-Western policy.

[50] Foreign leaders soon congratulated Zourabichvili during her time as President-elect, including US President Donald J. Trump, who touted Georgia's and the United States' close relationship as strategic partners.

Daur Kove, Abkhazia's foreign affairs minister, expressed hope that election of Georgia's new President could serve as a positive foundation for building dialogue between Tbilisi and Sokhumi.

On 24 December 2018, she announced her first slate of advisers and staffers, including:[64] Per the Constitution, President Zourabichvili is also guaranteed the right to make nominations to the Central Election Commission.

[72] The president held her first press conference on 11 January, where she detailed her positions on current events and outlined her main foreign policy priorities, including international cooperation on environmental protection and following the steps to join the European community.

Among her main legislative goals, President Zourabichvili emphasized her support for regulatory actions against defamation, in the same spirit as France's 2018 law to curb the rise of fake news during electoral times.

For her first annual Christmas tree lighting, she paid a visit to Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, a region that suffered severely during the 1990s civil war, with her administration organizing a concert with Georgian singers (including Natia Todua) to benefit local children.

President Zourabichvili also visited the conflict zone village of Rukhi, where a hospital funded by the Georgian Ministry of Defense is being built to welcome Abkhaz medical refugees, and the Enguri Bridge, the only crossing point open between Georgia proper and the secessionist republic of Abkhazia.

She proposed the creation of a convention center to be housed in the former parliamentary building, an idea that would be endorsed later by Mariam Jashi, chairwoman of the Education, Science, and Culture Committee of the Georgian Parliament.

[73] Zviad Gamsakhurdia died in the midst of a civil war in a Mingrelian village on 31 December 1993, and Tbilisi, at the time controlled by Eduard Shevardnadze -who had participated in his ouster,- ruled his death a suicide.

On 21 December, President Zourabichvili formally endorsed the request to expand the statute of limitations,[73] calling Gamsakhurdia's death a "murder",[74] a move supported by opposition and ruling party members of Parliament.

To that end, she chose her first visit abroad to Brussels, often considered as the capital of Europe, to meet with Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker, Antonio Tajani, Federica Mogherini, Johannes Hahn, Dimitris Avramopoulos, Michel Barnier, and Jens Stoltenberg, in January 2019.

While in Brussels, she announced her plan to access a de facto membership to the European Union, attempting to forge alliances with the EU in fields like culture, transportation, education, security, and others until Tbilisi can gain the formal status of a member.

On 25 March 2019, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, during an official visit to Tbilisi, was hosted by President Zourabichvili and pledged the eventual accession of Georgia into the Alliance.

In March 2019, her administration was in talks with the European External Action Service -the EU's foreign policy arm- on the potential for more cooperation in cybsersecurity and hybrid challenges with Brussels.

On the other hand, President Zourabichvili has been openly critical of Yerevan's informal positions on Georgia's secessionist republics: she criticized the close ties between Abkhazian, South Ossetian, and Karabakhian separatists (notably the signature of a cooperation agreement between Tskhinvali, Sokhumi, and Stepanakert) during meetings with President Armen Sarkissian and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and denounced the Armenian Apostolic Church's decision to move the Armenian churches in separatist Abkhazia from its Eparchy in Georgia to its Moscow-based Eparchy in Russia during a meeting with Catholicos Karekin II.