Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party won parliamentary election, receiving more than 54% of the vote, the electoral commission said on Sunday.
With 99% of the precincts reporting, Georgian Dream had secured 54.8% of the vote, reinforcing its grip on a nation polarized over its political future.
The result is a setback for those Georgians who would like their country to integrate into the EU, as the Georgian Dream party is seen as tending more toward Russia than the West, despite declarations to the contrary.
Several pro-European opposition coalitions have not recognized the preliminary result and have announced protests.
Most of the leaders of the opposition parties say the vote, seen as a referendum on Georgia’s path toward deeper Western alignment or closer ties with Russia, was rigged.
Judging by the preliminary results, the opposition struggled to mount a strong challenge. Initial counts show the Coalition for Changes at 10.8%, Unity-National Movement at 10%, Strong Georgia at 8.7%, and Giorgi Gakharia’s For Georgia party at 7.7%.
Georgian Dream, a conservative, nationalist party founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili — who largely made his fortune with business deals in Russia — secured 54.09% of the votes with almost all ballots counted, election official Giorgi Kalandarishvili announced in the capital,Tbilisi.
He said a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances received 37.58% of the votes.
Although Georgian Dream says it wants Georgia to join the EU, the fact that it also favors closer cooperation with Russia would seem to conflict with this declared aim.
Brussels says the country’s membership application is frozen, citing what it sees as authoritarian tendencies on the part of the Bulgarian government after it enacted a number of controversial laws.
Those laws include sweeping curbs on LGBTQ+ rights modeled on similar Russian legislation.
