The election is widely regarded as a pivotal for Georgia’s prospects of joining the European Union. Critics have slammed the government’s increasingly authoritarian trajectory and close ties with Russia.
Georgia’s EU membership prospects were stalled after the Georgian government adopted a controversial Russian-style “foreign agents” law, despite warnings that it could jeopardize Georgia’s bid to join the bloc.
In the lead-up to the election, the ruling party had also pledged to ban virtually all opposition parties, and has passed a string of Russian-style laws branding Western-backed human rights groups and media outlets as ‘foreign agents,’ and outlawing public references to the LGBTQ+ community.
A joint statement declaring the vote was “neither free nor fair” was signed by more than a dozen European and Canadian politicians, including the chairs of parliamentary foreign affairs committees in Germany, Lithuania, Ireland and Ukraine. “Against this background, the European Union cannot recognise the result,” it reads.
However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán moved to quickly congratulate Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and the Georgian Dream party “on their overwhelming victory at the parliamentary elections.” Orbán will visit Tbilisi on Oct. 28, the Georgian government announced, in a move likely to rile follow EU leaders.
European Council President Charles Michel decried the alleged intimidation and interference, and said “these alleged irregularities must be seriously clarified and addressed.”