Georgian oligarch and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party Bidzina Ivanishvili gives a speech during a gathering at the party's headquarters after exit polls were announced during parliamentary elections in Tbilisi on October 26, 2024. Photo / AFP
Georgian oligarch and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party Bidzina Ivanishvili gives a speech during a gathering at the party's headquarters after exit polls were announced during parliamentary elections in Tbilisi on October 26, 2024. Photo / AFP
Georgia’s ruling party and pro-Western opposition both claimed victory on Saturday night in a parliamentary election that could decide whether the country has a future in the EU.
Two opposition-commissioned exit polls showed the pro-Western parties, which have united into an alliance committed to steering Georgia back towardEU integration, winning enough to clinch a parliamentary majority.
But a third exit poll, commissioned by a pro-Government TV channel showed Georgian Dream, the anti-Western ruling party, coasting to a comfortable victory.
The party won 53% of the vote with the majority of precincts counted, according to a preliminary result from the electoral commission.
The major opposition leaders were on Saturday night refusing to accept the results of the election and are deeming them illegitimate.
Georgia’s election commission was expected to deliver a preliminary result late on Saturday night ahead of a definitive result on Sunday after all ballots have been counted.
Georgia's pro-Western opposition parties rejected as fraudulent election results that showed the ruling party winning parliamentary polls seen as a crucial test for Tbilisi's democracy and European ambitions. Photo / AFP
Nika Gvaramia, the leader of opposition party Coalition for Change, called the result a “great victory” in a news conference at the party’s headquarters.
“The Russian-backed regime of Georgian Dream is finally ended,” he said.
But Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s wealthiest oligarch who leads Georgian Dream, also declared victory minutes after the polls closed.
“It is a rare case in the world that the same party achieves such success in such a difficult situation,” Ivanishvili said.
In an interview prior to the announcement, Beka Odisharia, a Georgian Dream member of Parliament, predicted it would be “impossible” for the opposition parties to win a majority of the popular vote.
Salome Zourabichvili, Georgia’s President and a critic of Georgian Dream, stated there had been disruption of the vote earlier in the day, appearing to confirm fears of violence that had been raised in the build-up to the landmark election.
Georgian Dream election billboard portraying opposition leaders on leashes. The slogan could be translated as "No to war, No to foreign agents". Photo / AFP
Georgian Dream has held power since 2012 and has become increasingly authoritarian in recent years, with Ivanishvili recently vowing to ban opposition forces should it gain a large enough majority.
They have also angered Brussels by passing a law that requires organisations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of funding from abroad.
The opposition has presented the vote as a fork in the road between an alliance with the democratic West and one in which Georgia gets sucked back into Russia’s orbit.
The EU has frozen Georgia’s membership bid, citing “democratic backsliding”, only months after official membership talks last December.
At a voting station in the capital Tbilisi on Saturday morning, Ivane Maisaia, 35, said he voted for the opposition to guarantee a European future for his 8-year-old daughter.
Maisaia said he was concerned Georgian Dream would refuse to give up power if they lost the vote. If that becomes the case, he said: “It’s our duty as a country to protest.”
