Georgian ruling party wins disputed election, near-complete results show (updated)

Braze

27/10/2024 07:25

* 
      Georgian Dream takes 54% of vote, electoral commission
says
    

        * 
      Opposition parties reject results, citing violations
    

        * 
      OSCE reports incidents of ballot-stuffing, voter
intimidation
and bribery
    

  
 (Adds OSCE and NDI/IRI monitoring missions in paragraphs 3-7;
oppisition leader in 11-12; reaction from Estonian, Latvian
foreign ministers in 23)
    By Felix Light and Lucy Papachristou
       TBILISI, Oct 27 (Reuters) - 
    The ruling Georgian Dream party received more than 54% of
the vote in Georgia's parliamentary election on Saturday, the
electoral commission said on Sunday, though the outcome was
disputed by opposition parties.
    The result, with over 99% of precincts counted, dealt a blow
to pro-Western Georgians who had cast the vote as a choice
between a ruling party that has deepened ties with Russia and an
opposition aiming to fast-track integration with the European
Union.
    Three separate monitoring missions - the 57-nation
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); U.S.
nonprofit groups the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the
International Republican Institute (IRI); and a Georgian
election monitor - all reported significant violations during
Saturday's vote.
        The violations, including ballot-stuffing, bribery,
voter intimidation and physical violence near polling stations,
could have had an impact on the results, the groups said on
Sunday.
  
        However, the three monitoring missions all stopped short
of saying the elections had been stolen or falsified - claims on
which opposition groups doubled down on Sunday.
  
        "We continue to express deep concerns about the
democratic backsliding in Georgia," said Antonio López-Istúriz
White, head of the European Parliament's delegation to the OSCE
mission.
  
         "The conduct of yesterday's election is unfortunately
evidence to that effect," he told a news briefing.
  
    ISFED, a Georgian election monitoring group, said its
observers had filed over 200 complaints to electoral
authorities, although it said it had not seen significant
violations in the counting of votes, most of which were tallied
electronically.
    The electoral commission and Georgian Dream party did not
respond immediately to requests for comment on the allegations,
but on Saturday both hailed a free and fair election. Georgian
Dream is expected to comment on the matter later on Sunday.
    Georgia's four main opposition parties said they do not
recognise the results, with one opposition leader calling the
results "a constitutional coup". They cited two exit polls that 
showed the opposition winning a majority of seats in parliament.
    The leader of the United National Movement opposition party,
Tina Bokuchava, said the election had been "stolen".
        "My position, our position is that we definitely need
protest," she told Reuters on Sunday.
  
    But Georgian Dream's reclusive billionaire founder Bidzina
Ivanishvili, who had campaigned heavily on keeping Georgia out
of the war in Ukraine, claimed success on Saturday night after
his party's strongest performance since 2012. 
    Electoral commission data showed it winning by huge margins
of up to 90% in some rural areas, though it underperformed in
bigger cities.
    "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," Ivanishvili
told cheering supporters on Saturday night.
    
    EU MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION IN FOCUS
    Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream says it wants Georgia to join
the EU, though Brussels says the Caucasus country's membership
application is frozen over what it says is Georgian Dream's
authoritarian tendencies.
    Georgian Dream pushed through a law on "foreign agents" and
another curbing LGBT rights. Both drew strong criticism from
Western countries but were praised by some Russian officials.
    Georgia had been one of the most pro-Western countries to
emerge from the Soviet Union, with polls showing many Georgians
disliking Russia for its support of two breakaway regions of
their country.
    Russia and Georgia fought a brief war over the rebel
province of South Ossetia in 2008. Georgia was defeated.
    An EU official told Reuters there was "a sense of
disappointment" over the Georgian opposition's performance,
which set back EU expansion plans, but Brussels was primarily
concerned about a contested result leading to a standoff.
    The Estonian and Latvian foreign ministers both said they
were concerns by reports of irregularities in the election.   
    One local monitoring organisation called for the results to
be annulled, based on reports of voter intimidation and vote
buying, but it did not immediately provide evidence of
large-scale falsification.
    Last week Moldova voted narrowly to approve its European
Union accession in a vote that Moldovan officials said was
marred by Russian interference.

 (Reporting by Felix Light and Lucy Papachristou in Tbilisi,
Lili Bayer in Brussels; editing by David Goodman and Mark
Heinrich)