Tens of thousands of people have protested in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, to accuse its ruling party of “stealing” parliamentary elections and moving the strategic Black Sea state away from the West and towards autocracy and Russia.
Four opposition groups refused to accept defeat after the central election commission announced that they had received a combined total of 38 per cent in Saturday’s vote, well behind the governing Georgian Dream party on 54 per cent. Two of three main exit polls had indicated earlier that the opposition alliance had won.
“You, the people gathered here, you have not lost the elections. Your vote was stolen and they tried to steal your future as well. But nobody has the right to do that,” Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili told a cheering and flag-waving crowd massed outside the national parliament on Tbilisi’s central Rustaveli Avenue.
“I solemnly swear I will be with you until the end on this European path. And until we reach Europe’s doors, which is our true reality and future,” she added, noting that senior European and US officials had called for an investigation into alleged vote fraud.
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“No one, except the one who just went by, recognises these elections,” she said in reference to nationalist Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, who is close to Georgian Dream and arrived in Tbilisi to congratulate it on what he called a fair and “overwhelming” election victory; a group of demonstrators had jeered and whistled when Mr Orban emerged from a luxury hotel on Rustaveli Avenue earlier in the evening.
Opposition parties said the elections should be ruled illegitimate, and vowed to boycott parliament until a new vote was held under international oversight.
The European Union granted official candidate status to Georgia last year, but halted talks this summer after its government restricted LGBT+ rights, tightened control over civil society groups and repeatedly made unsubstantiated accusations that the West was trying covertly to oust Georgian Dream and drag the country of 3.7 million people into war with Russia.
The ruling party says it wants Georgia to join the EU but its leader, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, has threatened to ban the main opposition party and jail opponents.
“The people of Georgia have been fighting for democracy. They have a right to know what happened this weekend. A right to see that irregularities are investigated swiftly, transparently, independently. As free and fair elections are at the core of European values,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell made clear that Mr Orban was not representing the EU in Georgia, even though Hungary now holds the bloc’s rotating presidency
Upon arrival in Tbilisi, Mr Orban said: “Georgia is a conservative, Christian and pro-Europe state. Instead of useless lecturing, they need our support on their European path.”
Senior Georgian Dream member Shalva Papuashvili said the opposition had launched “a desperate campaign ... a campaign of hatred” because they “don’t want to accept people’s will”.
“They [voters] have seen that the opposition does not carry the interests of the Georgian people but goes abroad and plans its agenda in favour of them [foreigners],” he added, insisting that the vote had been “democratic” and “free”.
Wrapped in Georgian and EU flags, activist Zaza Mikeladze said the election “was totally rigged ... so we have to be here to fight for our rights and our European perspective.
“Georgian Dream – in reality ‘Russian Dream’ – took the rights of Georgian citizens,” he added. “The elections should be cancelled and we need new elections.”
Another protester, Giorgi (23), said: “The election was not fair ... We need freedom and we want to be a democratic country, that’s why we are here.”
European Affairs ministers from Ireland, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Lithuania, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Sweden issued a joint statement last night supporting demands for an inquiry into election violations. “The violations of electoral integrity are incompatible with the standards expected from a candidate to the European Union,” said the statement.
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