The South Caucasus Republic of Georgia also voted on the country’s EU course in a fateful election. Almost all votes have now been counted. There is a dispute about the result.
In the parliamentary election in the South Caucasus Republic of Georgia, the electoral commission declared the ruling party the winner. Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s national-conservative Georgian Dream party received 54.09 percent of the vote after almost all ballot papers were counted, as returning officer Giorgi Kalandarishvili announced in the capital Tbilisi.
After counting the votes from 99.6 percent of the electoral districts, some from abroad were still missing, he said. The preliminary official final result is therefore still pending. Several pro-European opposition alliances do not recognize this preliminary result and have announced protests.
The pro-European opposition parties speak of electoral fraud and claim victory for themselves. Pro-Western President Salome Zurabishvili said after the publication of post-election surveys that the opposition would get 52 percent of the vote and could form a pro-Western majority in parliament. In contrast, the electoral commission saw the four opposition blocs that made it over the five percent hurdle at over 37 percent.
However, the opposition in the country on the Black Sea is divided. Some parties had formed electoral alliances. According to the electoral commission, the electoral alliance Unity, which also includes the United National Movement, the largest opposition party in the 2020 parliamentary election, received around ten percent of the vote. The electoral alliance Coalition for Change is therefore the strongest opposition alliance with around eleven percent of the votes counted. Two other blocks each landed below ten percent
Opposition fears the country will turn away from the EU course
A total of around 3.5 million Georgians at home and abroad were called to vote. According to preliminary information, voter turnout was around 59 percent – three percentage points higher than in 2020.
The country on the Black Sea has 3.7 million inhabitants and has been a candidate for EU membership since the end of 2023. However, the accession process is on hold due to controversial laws. The opposition, traditionally divided and with several electoral alliances, fears that Georgia, under the leadership of the oligarch Ivanishvili, who has become rich in Moscow, will turn even more towards its large neighbor Russia and finally deviate from its EU course.
The ruling party he founded, the Georgian Dream, promised peace and stability during the election campaign – and raised fears of a war with Russia if the opposition won. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Oran and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev were the first to congratulate the Georgian Dream on its victory.
Source: Stern
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