Georgia’s ruling party appears to have won a pivotal national election centred on the country’s future in Europe as early official results showed them with more than half of the vote.
Georgian Dream’s billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, the opposition, and foreign diplomats had cast the election as a watershed moment that would decide if Georgia moves closer to the West or leans back towards Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
Mr Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, came to power in 2012 advocating pro-Western views, alongside a pragmatic policy towards Russia.
But he has since soured on the West, accusing a “Global War Party” of seeking to drag Georgia into war with Russia, even as he insists Georgia is on course to join the European Union.
If victory for Mr Ivanishvili’s ruling party is confirmed, it would be a blow to the EU’s hopes of bringing more former Soviet republics into its orbit. Moldova on 20 October voted by a very slim majority to support EU accession.
Early official results with 70 per cent of precincts counted, representing the majority of votes cast, showed the ruling party had won 53 per cent of the vote, the electoral commission said. The results do not include most ballots cast by Georgians living overseas.
But just hours earlier, rival exit polls run by pro-opposition channels showed major gains for the coalition of parties vying for office.
The country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has also come under criticism for being too close to the government and for rushing through electoral reform ahead of the election without sufficient consultation.
Mr Ivanishvili, the ruling party Georgia Dream’s reclusive founder and onetime prime minister, claimed victory late on Saturday and praised the Georgian people.
“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,” he told cheering supporters.
Though Georgia Dream lost out to the combined opposition in parts of the capital, Tbilisi, it won margins of up to 90 per cent in some rural areas.
The Georgian opposition initially also celebrated victory and some monitors reported election violations. But a parallel count operated by one of the opposition parties showed Georgia Dream in a strong position to win a majority.
Party representatives said they would be analysing the results in the coming hours, but stopped short for the moment of alleging any falsifications.
Various opposition figures, however, reported intimidation at the polls, with some alleging they had been assaulted by their Georgia Dream counterparts.
With less than an hour to go before the polls closed, pro-Western president Salome Zourabichvili appealed to opposition voters not to be intimidated.
“Don’t get scared. All this is just psychological pressure on you,” she said in a live address on social media.
Russia had repeatedly signalled it wanted Georgia Dream to win, while accusing Western countries of undue interference in Georgian politics.
“The Georgians won. Well done!” said Margarita Simonyan, the editor of Russian state media outlet RT, which the United States has accused of trying to influence its own presidential election. There was no immediate comment from the EU.