Politics Georgia's election commission declares ruling party the winner
The electoral commission has declared the ruling party the winner of the parliamentary elections in the South Caucasus republic of Georgia. The national-conservative Georgian Dream party of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili received 54.09 percent of the vote after almost all ballot papers had been counted, according to election commissioner Giorgi Kalandarishvili in the capital Tbilisi.
27.10.2024, 08:55
SDA
After counting the votes from 99.6 percent of the constituencies, some votes from abroad were still missing, he said. The provisional official final result is therefore still pending. Several pro-European opposition alliances do not recognize this preliminary result and have announced protests.
The pro-European opposition parties speak of electoral fraud and are claiming victory. Following the publication of post-election polls, the pro-Western President Salome Zurabishvili declared that the opposition had received a total of 52% of the vote and could form a pro-Western majority in parliament. In contrast, the electoral commission put the four opposition blocs that managed to get over the five percent hurdle at over 37 percent.
However, the opposition in the country on the Black Sea is divided. Some parties had formed electoral alliances. The electoral alliance Unity, which also includes the largest opposition party in the 2020 parliamentary elections, the United National Movement, received around ten percent of the vote according to the electoral commission. The Coalition for Change electoral alliance is therefore the strongest opposition alliance with around 11% of the votes counted. Two other blocs each received less than ten percent
Opposition fears the country will turn away from the EU course
A total of around 3.5 million Georgians at home and abroad were called to vote. According to preliminary figures, voter turnout was around 59% - three percentage points higher than in 2020.
The country on the Black Sea has a population of 3.7 million and has been an EU accession candidate since the end of 2023. However, the accession process is on hold due to controversial laws. The traditionally divided opposition, which has formed several electoral alliances, fears that Georgia, under the leadership of oligarch Ivanishvili, who became rich in Moscow, will turn even more towards its big neighbor Russia and finally abandon its EU course.
The ruling party he founded, Georgian Dream, on the other hand, promised peace and stability during the election campaign - and stoked fears of war with Russia should the opposition win. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Oran and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev were the first to congratulate Georgian Dream on its victory.
