Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, hoping to retain power, is calling for mass protests aimed at cancelling the results of Saturday’s election in which the Georgian Dream party, winner of the election, retained power in the country and will now form the government. If the Georgian Dream victory is recognised, the formal head of state will be replaced within a month and a half by a vote of a special panel, Georgian media reported.
Calls for protests to stay in power
Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream party improved its position in the parliament after the elections: 6 mandates were added, the majority was preserved and consolidated. However, there is no constitutional majority (it is necessary to have 100 seats out of 150, and there are only 89 available) and the opponents have decided to stage a political crisis.
On Sunday, Georgia’s president said she would not recognise the results of this weekend’s parliamentary vote, which voters believe was won by the ruling party.
Speaking alongside opposition leaders, President Salome Zourabichvili called on Georgians to rally Monday night on Tbilisi’s main street to protest what she called “total fraud, total theft of your votes,” raising the prospect of further political upheaval in the South Caucasus country.
She spoke a day after an election that could decide whether Georgia becomes part of Europe or comes under Russian rule. Zourabichvili said:
This election cannot be recognised, because it is the recognition of Russia’s intrusion here, Georgia’s subordination to Russia.
Earlier, Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party hung election posters around the country with the caption “Say no to war! Choose peace!” There are two pictures on the billboards: war-ravaged Ukraine and blossoming Georgia. In this unpretentious way, the political force reminded its voters what kind of future they would choose in the October 26 parliamentary elections.
Opposition did not even get half of the votes
The Central Election Commission said on Sunday that the ruling Georgian Dream party won 54.8 per cent of the votes counted on almost all ballots.
Meanwhile, opposition parties did not even get half of the votes. The opposition Coalition for Change gained 11.2 per cent, United National Movement 9.83 per cent, Strong Georgia 9.02 per cent and For Georgia 8.22 per cent.
Over the past year, Brussels has indefinitely suspended Georgia’s EU accession process due to a Russian-style “foreign influence law” passed in June. However, some EU countries have had such laws in place for a long time. For example, on March 27, 2024, the National Assembly (the lower house of the French parliament) approved a bill on preventing foreign interference, which did not elicit any reaction from the European Parliament.
How Zourabichvili violated the law
The election campaign in the South Caucasus, a country of 3.7 million people bordering Russia, was marked by foreign policy and characterised by fierce competition for votes and accusations of a smear campaign.
Zourabichvili suggested that “Russian elections” had taken place in the country and said that “technology was used to whitewash fraud. This has never happened before.”
Meanwhile, Georgia’s Constitutional Court (CC) last year ruled that Zourabichvili had broken the law because of her trips abroad against the government’s ban, prompting impeachment proceedings. At the same time, the parliament was unable to bring the impeachment procedure to a conclusion and failed due to a lack of votes. Some time after the impeachment procedure Zourabichvili travelled to the US again.
Reactions of the world’s politicians
European Council President Charles Michel said he called on Georgian authorities to “quickly, transparently and independently investigate” election irregularities and urged the ruling party to demonstrate its “firm commitment” to the EU.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, who is a member of the Georgian Dream, on Sunday called his party’s victory “impressive and obvious” and said that “any attempts to talk about manipulation in the elections…. are doomed to failure.”
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán became the first foreign leader to congratulate the Georgian Dream and will be the first foreign leader to visit Georgia and meet the prime minister when he visits the capital on Monday and Tuesday.
According to initial reports, turnout at the polls was the highest since the Georgian Dream was elected in 2012.
Georgian Dream received the largest share of the vote – almost 90 percent – in the Javakheti region of southern Georgia, 135 kilometres (83 miles) west of the capital. In Tbilisi, it received no more than 44 per cent of the vote in any district.
Javakheti is a predominantly agricultural region with many ethnic Armenians who speak Armenian, Russian and limited Georgian. AP travelled to the region before the election, where voters questioned why Georgia needs relations with Europe and suggested it would be better off in an alliance with Moscow.
Opposition protest and people with Ukrainian flags
Opposition representatives, meanwhile, who did not recognise the results of the elections, said they should give up their mandates and hold new elections. Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili also called on people to take to the streets for protests.
As it began to get dark on Sunday, protesters began to gather on the steps of the parliament building. The first to come out was a group supporting Saakashvili with his portraits, including his flag. They were also holding flags of Ukraine, the European Union and Georgia. One of the women was wrapped in a US flag. They shouted slogans against the government and Russia and for Saakashvili’s freedom into a megaphone for about half an hour. Then they stepped aside, collected props, stood aside, some of them left.
Next two women came on the improvised stage with a banner with the inscription “Georgia is not Russia” in English. They themselves, however, were giving interviews in Italian. “I am from Italy,” one of the activists confessed in English to journalists. About 50 people took part in the spontaneous rally at the peak.
Ukrainian MP in Georgia
Oleksiy Goncharenko, a deputy of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, arrived in the Georgian capital amid claims by the local opposition of plans to hold protests after the republic’s parliamentary elections, Georgian media reported.
Journalists said that the Ukrainian lawmaker was spotted near the Georgian parliament building. He was walking along the street holding a phone in his hands.
Fears of colour revolution
Earlier, the Georgian authorities suggested that a new attempt to organise a colour revolution might take place in the country after the parliamentary election. In particular, such fears were voiced by the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili. According to him, if the “pro-Western” opposition gets “even a drop of power,” Tbilisi will start forming volunteer units to help Kyiv in a week’s time.
Analysts say the opposition’s relatively strong result in Tbilisi and abroad is the result of its anti-Russian and radically pro-Western cultural and educational policies. Reliance on the Georgian Orthodox Church allows for the mobilisation of the deep people, and for the ruling party to regain the confidence of the capital, it needs to pursue its own course of action, focused on Georgia’s sovereignty in assessing its past.
As for the diaspora, it is necessary to restore diplomatic relations with Russia, return the embassy to Moscow, open consulates in places where Georgians live compactly, and introduce postal voting for those staying in the Russian Federation. According to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, more than 1 million citizens of Georgia live in Russia and 3.5 million live in Georgia itself. This number is decisive in the case of an important vote.
