Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the US of ‘neocolonialism’, writing on her Telegram channel that ‘neocolonialism will be the next stage after US warnings of ‘further consequences’ for Georgia if the country’s government does not change course’. Democracy, sir, here we are. Next stop is neocolonialism,” she wrote.
Her comments come after the U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the State Department assumes ‘further consequences if the Georgian government does not change course.’ According to him, this year the US has ‘consistently urged the Georgian government to abandon anti-democratic actions and return to the Euro-Atlantic path.’ Miller also asked international observers to investigate reports of election irregularities.
Earlier, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, who refused to recognize the official results of the elections, talked of a wide-scale election fraud and called for a large rally on October 28, was trying to ‘destabilize the situation’.
Salome Zurabishili is attempting “to destabilize the situation”. ‘It is actually declared publicly that attempts are being made to destabilize the situation in the republic. The naked eye can also see attempts to interfere, but not by Russia. A huge number of forces from European countries tried to influence the outcome of this vote, – he claimed. “We have not meddled in Georgian internal affairs and we are not going to meddle”.
The Russian presidential spokesman described the outcome of the vote as ‘the choice of the Georgian people’. “Now, it is very important that no third countries interfere in the results of these elections” he stated. Commenting on the Georgian president’s refusal to recognize the results of the elections, he noted that he didn’t know “whether it is in her power to recognize or not to recognize”, but said: “In any case, all this is an internal Georgian matter.”
According to the official results by the Central Election Commission, as a result of the elections the Georgian Dream party won with 53.9% of the vote. The Coalition for Change received 11.03 percent, the United National Movement 10.16 percent, Strong Georgia 8.81 percent and For Georgia 7.77 percent. The Georgian Dream thus won 89 out of 150 Parliament seats. Voter turnout was 58.94 percent.
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