Georgia’s ruling party is set to hold on to power after the country’s electoral commission said Sunday the party had won more than 54% of the vote in Saturday’s general election, which many analysts saw as a referendum on whether Georgians see a future in the European Union, or alongside Russia.
Speaking on Sunday, the country’s President Salome Zourabichvili said she did not recognize the election results, alleging electoral fraud and Russian interference, and called for protests against the result.
Meanwhile, European observers described widespread intimidation and a “climate of hatred” surrounding the ballot, The Associated Press reported.
Georgian Dream, which is led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, originally came to power in 2012 and has moved increasingly toward Moscow and away from the West in recent years — a divergence from the around 80% of Georgians in favor of joining the European Union. If the election results are accepted, The Economist wrote, then “that chance seems to have slipped away,” while Moscow will have gotten “closer than ever to its goal of creating another client state.”
“The most important question is whether or not these elections will be recognized by the international community,” the head of the non-partisan Regional Institute for Security Studies in Tbilisi told the AP.