Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party received over 54% of the vote in Saturday’s election, the Central Election Commission said on Sunday, though the results have been disputed by the country’s pro-EU opposition parties.
The opposition has accused the election commission of “filling a dirty order” from Georgian Dream’s leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
International observers said that the financial imbalance between the ruling and opposition parties weakened trust in both the fairness and outcome of the elections.
Iulian Bulai, the head of the delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said: “[The] uneven playing fields and the deficiencies we just noted in the election process undermine the trust, its outcome, and its fairness. […] This explains the reaction to the election results.”
He added: “The presence of cameras of the ruling party in the polling stations and people in front of polling stations tracking and possibly controlling voters led to a widespread climate of pressure and party-organized intimidation and the feeling of ‘Big Brother is watching you’.”
Bulai also said that the PACE delegation observed cases of “vote buying and double voting before and during elections, especially in the rural areas.”
Pascal Allizard, Special Coordinator of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), added: “Reports of pressure on voters, particularly on public sector employees, remain widespread in the campaign.
“This, coupled with extensive tracking on voters on election day, raise concerns about the ability of some voters to cast their vote without fear of retribution.”
Europe must stand with Georgians, says Polish FM
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said on Sunday that Georgia’s parliamentary election results differ from exit polls, indicating that the electoral process may not have been fully democratic.
He said: “We expect reports from international observers, but it seems that the result differs from the exit polls, and it seems that the elections were not fully democratic.
“Let international observers speak, but I am very concerned about this situation, because these elections were perhaps a key day of choice as to Georgia’s orientation.”
He added that four opposition groups have already denounced the official results as ‘unfair,’ with Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili claiming that the opposition has won.
Zourabichvili rejected the official results on Sunday, alleging
‘total falsification’ amid what she described as unprecedented Russian interference aimed at undermining Georgia’s democratic process.
Following Zourabichvili’s announcement, Sikorski wrote on X: “The President of Georgia has announced that the parliamentary elections were falsified. Europe must now stand with the Georgian people.”
‘Neither free nor fair’
Representatives from European parliaments as well as the parliament of Canada also said in a statement on Sunday that Georgia's parliamentary elections were “neither free nor fair,” citing instances of candidate intimidation, state power abuses, and vote-buying.
The statement read: “The political climate in the run-up to the elections did not correspond to European standards of justice.”
It added that the European Union could not recognize the results of these elections and called for personal sanctions to be imposed on those responsible for the abuses.
European Council President Charles Michel also called for a swift and transparent investigation of alleged irregularities, saying that he would put the topic on the agenda of the EU summit in in Budapest on November 8.
He wrote on X: “The alleged irregularities during the Georgia elections must be seriously clarified and addressed.”
Western nations worry that if the pro-Russian Georgian Dream remains in power, Georgia may again fail to reassert its sovereignty and remain victim to Russia’s ambitions to revive its empire.
