The US and the European Union (EU) called for a comprehensive investigation into reports of irregularities in Georgia’s elections, with President Salome Zourabichvili urging people to protest on Monday, the 28th of October, after a disputed parliamentary vote, while Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze welcomed the “landslide” election result, rejecting allegations of vote-rigging and violence at polling stations, reports Reuters and the BBC.
The ruling Georgian Dream party won 54% of the vote, the electoral commission said, with opposition parties contesting the outcome and observers reporting significant violations.
Election commission figures show that Georgian Dream won by a landslide of up to 90% in some rural areas, although its results were lower in major cities.
Zourabichvili said she did not recognise the results and called the vote a “Russian special operation” and
urged Georgians to protest in the centre of the capital Tbilisi on Monday evening, to show the world “that we do not recognise these elections”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Georgia to investigate alleged electoral irregularities, with Blinken saying that “international observers did not recognise the election results as free and fair” and calling on Georgian leaders to “respect the rule of law, repeal laws that undermine fundamental freedoms, and work together to address shortcomings in the electoral process”.
The EU also urged Georgia to investigate alleged irregularities in the vote quickly and transparently and stressed the need to repeal laws that contradict EU values. The EU has suspended Georgia’s efforts to join the EU because it is “backsliding on democracy”.
However, the Prime Minister insisted that out of 3 111 polling stations “only a couple of polling stations” had experienced incidents, while in all the others “the environment was completely calm”.
Several irregularities were reported on Sunday by three separate observation groups, including the 57-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The groups said that alleged irregularities, including ballot stuffing, bribery, voter intimidation and violence near polling stations, could have influenced the results, but the results were not considered to have been fraudulent.
Even before the election results were announced, one of the EU leaders, Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, congratulated the “Georgian dream” on winning a fourth term and will arrive in Georgia on Monday.
The opposition will now have 61 seats in the 150-seat parliament and the Georgian Dream 89 seats, a majority but not large enough to bring about the constitutional changes the party wanted in order to carry out its threat to ban opposition parties.
Saturday’s elections were seen as a choice between the ruling party, which has deepened ties with Russia, and the opposition, which aims to speed up integration with Europe, in contrast to Moldova’s recent constitutional decision to join the EU, also alleging Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.