Georgia’s pro-western opposition has called on the country to protest on Monday against the disputed parliamentary victory of the ruling, Russia-aligned Georgian Dream (GD) party.
GD retained power in Saturday’s pivotal election that dealt a significant blow to the country’s long-held aspirations for EU membership, amid allegations of voter intimidation and coercion.
The opposition refused to concede defeat and accused the ruling party of a “constitutional coup”, setting the stage for a potential political crisis that could further polarise the Caucasus country.
At a press conference organised by the opposition on Sunday evening, Georgia’s pro-EU president, Salome Zourabichvili, declared that she did not recognise the election results and asserted that the country had fallen victim to a “Russian special operation”.
Zourabichvili, whose role is largely ceremonial, called on Georgians to protest against the results on Monday evening. “This was a total rigging, a total robbery of your votes,” she said.
The electoral commission announced on Sunday that GD secured 54% of the vote, winning 89 seats in the parliament – one fewer than in 2020. Four pro-western opposition parties collectively won a total of 61 seats.
The result thwarts the opposition’s hopes for a pro-western coalition of four blocs and in effect stalls the country’s aspirations for EU integration.
Voters in the country of almost 4 million people had headed to the polls on Saturday in a watershed election to decide whether the increasingly authoritarian GD, which has been in power since 2012 and steered the country into a conservative course away from the west and closer to Russia, should get another four-year term.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, the shadowy billionaire founder of GD, claimed victory shortly after polls closed in what has been called the most consequential election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
“It is a rare case in the world that the same party achieves such success in such a difficult situation – this is a good indicator of the talent of the Georgian people,” said Ivanishvili, widely considered to be the country’s most powerful figure.
For the past three decades, Georgia has maintained strong pro-western aspirations, with polls showing up to 80% of its people favour joining the EU. In recent years, however, the government has increasingly shifted away from the west in favour of Russia, showing reluctance to condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
An international observer mission on Sunday said the conduct of the election was evidence of “democratic backsliding” in the country.
A preliminary report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said it “noted reports of intimidation, coercion and pressure on voters, particularly on public sector employees and other groups, raising concerns about the ability of some voters to cast their vote without fear of retribution”.
However, it stopped short of saying the elections had been stolen or falsified – a claim the opposition reiterated on Sunday.
On Saturday morning, several videos circulated online appearing to show ballot stuffing and voter intimidation at various polling stations across Georgia.
Electoral commission data showed GD winning by suspiciously big margins of up to 90% in some rural areas, though it underperformed in bigger cities.
Western officials have expressed concern over reports of election fraud, though they too have used cautious language and refrained from calling for a boycott of the results. The European Council president, Charles Michel, on Sunday pushed for a swift and transparent investigation into alleged irregularities during the election.
It remains unclear if the opposition will be able to galvanise enough support in the coming days. Last spring, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Tbilisi to protest a controversial “foreign agents” bill that critics argued was designed to stifle the country’s media and NGOs. Those protests gradually faded after a police crackdown and a series of arrests.
The election result suggests GD retains support from a core group of Georgian voters, particularly in industrial heartlands and conservative, poorer regions where economic progress has been slow and the appeal of Europe feels distant and faint.
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GD received congratulations from several foreign leaders including Hungary’s hard-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a longtime ally of Ivanishvili, who is scheduled to visit Tbilisi on Tuesday.
GD has been accused by critics at home and abroad of plans to move the country in an authoritarian direction after Ivanishvili vowed to ban all the leading opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers if his party was re-elected.
The party was facing an unprecedented union of four pro-western opposition forces that had vowed to form a coalition government to oust it from power and put Georgia back on track to join the EU.
The biggest opposition force is the centre-right UNM, a party founded by Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president who is in prison on charges of abuse of power that his allies say are politically motivated. From jail, Saakashvili called on Georgians to take the streets.
In the aftermath of the elections, voters in Tbilisi seemed divided over the country’s future course. Ana Machaidze, a 25-year-old student, said: “We have lost our country today. I don’t know what to do next. I hope we can take to the streets, but if we lose, maybe I will live abroad.”
Support for the pro-western opposition groups generally came from urban and younger voters, who envision their political future with the EU.
Irakli Shengelia, 56, a restaurant worker, said he was glad GD would remain in power because the party guaranteed “peace and stability” with Russia.
The government, aligned with the deeply conservative and influential Orthodox church, has sought to galvanise anti-liberal sentiments by campaigning on “family values” and criticising what it portrays as western excesses.
In the summer, the parliament passed legislation imposing sweeping restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights – a move that critics say mirrored laws enacted in neighbouring Russia, where authorities have implemented a series of repressive measures against sexual minorities.
In Russia, the election results were widely welcomed. As the results trickled in, state propaganda celebrated the outcome, with Margarita Simonyan, the influential editor-in-chief of the state media outlet RT, declaring that “the Georgians had won”.