Georgia’s ruling party wins parliamentary election amid claims of violations
- 27 October, 10:24
Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream Party won the country’s parliamentary elections held on Sunday.
The party won 54% of the vote based on 99% of precincts counted. The pro-Russian Georgia Dream’s victory was a major blow to the country’s pro-Western forces who viewed the election as a choice between the country’s EU integration and the deepening of ties with the Kremlin.
Soon after the outcome became clear, opposition alliances “Unity – National Movement” and “Coalition for Change” contested the results of the October 26 election as fraudulent and announced they are initiating acts of civil disobedience.
The country’s pro-Western President Solome Zourabichvili blamed Russia for what she described as the rigging of the election.
“We witnessed something very unusual, it was completely rigged […] completely stealing all of your votes, using all the techniques that we have seen, in addition to using today’s technology to whitewash the fraud. There has never been such a thing. We were witnesses and victims of a Russian special operation, one of the new forms of hybrid war, which was carried out on our people - on our country”.
“During these elections, we were deprived of the right to vote. The elections held were Russian, the institution of elections was taken away from us,” the president went on saying.
