Georgia president calls for protests as opposition cries foul over election

TBILISI — Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has called on citizens to take to the streets in protest, saying the country’s ruling party used widespread fraud to win Saturday’s nationwide election.

In a speech alongside opposition leaders on Sunday, she said: “I do not accept this election. It cannot be accepted, accepting it would be accepting Russia into this country, the acceptance of Georgia’s subordination to Russia.” She invited supporters to gather outside the country’s parliament at 7 p.m. on Monday to oppose the result, which she said had been rigged.

“We became witnesses and victims of a Russia special operation,” added Zourabichvili, who has become one of the most prominent critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party. “They stole our right to choice, they carried out a Russian election.”

Opposition parties cried foul after preliminary results showed a lead for Georgian Dream, which took 53 percent of the vote compared the opposition bloc’s 38 percent.

Violence erupted at multiple polling stations in Georgia on Saturday as voters cast their ballots. Observer organizations, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), reported concerns over vote-buying, “imbalances in financial resources, a divisive campaign atmosphere, and recent legislative amendments.”

The National Democratic Institute’s international observer mission noted that the pre-election period had been compromised by widespread threats, harassment and in some cases violence, affecting voters, activists and political actors.

Georgia’s prime minister rejected the allegations of vote-rigging and violence, telling the BBC that “irregularities happen everywhere” and that “the general content of the elections was in line with legal principles and the principle of democratic elections.”

The 53 percent vote share achieved by Georgian Dream would allow the ruling party to form a government alone without other parties.

Opposition groups, including Coalition for Change and Unity — National Movement, said their MPs would not take up their parliamentary mandates because the election results were fraudulent.

Tina Bokuchava of the opposition United National Movement party told POLITICO that the election should be held again so the country could have a government elected by the mandate of its people. Some other party leaders declined to echo her call, however.

The election is widely regarded as pivotal to Georgia’s prospects of joining the European Union. Critics have slammed the government’s increasingly authoritarian trajectory and close ties with Russia.

Georgia’s EU membership prospects stalled after the current government adopted a controversial Russian-style “foreign agents” law, despite warnings it could jeopardize the country’s bid to join the bloc.

In the lead-up to the election, the ruling party also pledged to ban virtually all opposition parties, and passed a string of Russian-style laws branding Western-backed human rights groups and media outlets as “foreign agents,” and outlawing public references to the LGBTQ+ community.

A joint statement declaring that the vote had been “neither free nor fair” was signed by more than a dozen European and Canadian politicians, including the chairs of parliamentary foreign affairs committees in Germany, Lithuania, Ireland and Ukraine. “Against this background, the European Union cannot recognise the result,” the statement read.

However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán moved to quickly congratulate Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and Georgian Dream “on their overwhelming victory at the parliamentary elections.” Orbán will visit Tbilisi Oct. 28, the Georgian government announced, in a move likely to rile fellow EU leaders.

European Council President Charles Michel decried the alleged intimidation and interference, and said “these alleged irregularities must be seriously clarified and addressed.”

“What a disgrace,” wrote Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže on X, commenting on the reports from the OSCE. “I applaud the Georgian people who came out to vote en masse despite intimidation. Their wish for a European future must be respected by any Georgian government.”

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna also expressed concern over “reports of irregularities,” writing on X: “Closely following the evaluations of international & local observers.”

This story is being updated.