Georgia president won’t recognise election results
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has called for people to take to the streets to protest the results of a disputed parliamentary election, which the electoral commission said the ruling party had won.
The Georgian Dream party clinched nearly 54 per cent of the vote, the commission said on Sunday, as opposition parties contested the result and vote monitors reported significant violations.
Zourabichvili, a former Georgian Dream ally turned fierce critic of the ruling party, said she did not recognise the results of Saturday’s vote and referred to it as a “Russian special operation”. She did not clarify whether she believed Russia had a direct role in the elections.
“It was a total fraud, a total taking away of your votes,” Zourabichvili told reporters, flanked by Georgian opposition party leaders.
Zourabichvili called on Georgians to protest in the centre of the capital, Tbilisi, on Monday evening “to announce to the world that we do not recognise these elections”.
The results, with almost all precincts counted, were a blow for pro-Western Georgians who had cast the election as a choice between a ruling party that has deepened ties with Russia and an opposition aiming to fast-track integration with Europe.
Georgian Dream, now headed for a fourth term in office, will take 89 seats in parliament, one less than it secured in 2020, the commission said, with four pro-Western opposition parties receiving 61 seats in total.
A series of violations were reported on Sunday by three separate monitoring missions, including the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The groups said the alleged violations, including ballot-stuffing, bribery, voter intimidation and violence near polling stations, could have affected the result but stopped short of calling the outcome fraudulent.
“We continue to express deep concerns about the democratic backsliding in Georgia,” said Antonio Lopez-Isturiz White, head of the European Parliament’s delegation to the OSCE mission.
“The conduct of yesterday’s election is unfortunately evidence to that effect.”
In a post on X, European Council President Charles Michel called on Georgia’s electoral commission to fully investigate the reported violations.
“We reiterate the EU’s call to the Georgian leadership to demonstrate its firm commitment to the country’s EU path,” he said.
The electoral commission did not respond immediately to requests for comment, but on Saturday hailed a free and fair election. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said the observers’ conclusions showed there was no doubt about the election’s legitimacy.
Georgia’s four pro-Western opposition parties said they did not recognise the results, and some members pledged to boycott the new parliament and called for supporters to take to the streets.
Coalition for Change opposition party leader Nika Gvaramia called the vote “a constitutional coup” and a “usurpation of power”. His party cited two exit polls that showed the opposition winning a majority of seats in parliament.
The leader of the United National Movement opposition party, Tina Bokuchava, said the election had been “stolen”, calling for protests.
Georgian Dream’s reclusive billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, who campaigned heavily on keeping Georgia out of the war in Ukraine, hailed the party’s victory on Saturday night after its strongest performance since 2012.
Electoral commission data showed it winning by huge margins of up to 90 per cent in some rural areas, though it underperformed in bigger cities.
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