Georgia elections: Ruling party leads in key European vote

Georgia’s ruling party is leading a crucial election focused on the country’s future path in Europe, official forecasts say.

The Central Election Commission said that based on more than two-thirds of the vote count, the Georgian Dream party, led by billionaire Byzina Ivanishvili, had won nearly 53% of the vote.

The increasingly authoritarian party and four pro-EU opposition groups seeking to end its 12 years in power had earlier claimed victory based on competing exit polls.

Georgians turned out in large numbers to vote on Saturday in the South Caucasus state, which borders Russia, and there were numerous reports of voting irregularities and violence outside polling stations.

An opposition official in a town south of the capital Tbilisi told the BBC that he was first beaten by a local “Georgian Dream” councilor, and then “10 other people came and I don’t know what happened.”

The opposition described the high-stakes vote as a choice between Europe or Russia. Many viewed the vote as the most critical since Georgia backed independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

After the vote, exit polls for pro-opposition television channels showed that “Georgian Dream” received 40.9% of the vote, while the four opposition groups’ combined vote share was 51.9%. But a poll by Imedi, a major government-backed television channel, showed support for Georgian Dream at 56 percent.

Some time later, the Central Election Commission (CEC) released its first forecast. The Central Election Commission has been criticized for being too close to the government and for rushing into electoral reforms before the elections without adequate consultation.

If the prediction is confirmed, Georgian Dream would gain a parliamentary majority, dashing the opposition’s hopes of building a coalition of four groups.

Under Georgia’s new proportional representation system, whoever wins half the vote wins half of the 150 seats.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made her fortune in Russia in the 1990s, told supporters that “it is rare in the world for the same party to achieve such success in such difficult circumstances.”

Opposition leaders, however, had a different view.

“We believe that the Georgian public has clearly voted for a Eurocentric future and no gesture will change that,” said Tina Bokuchava of the largest opposition party, the United National Movement.

“This is this moment. There may not be another moment like this in the future,” Levan Benidze, a 36-year-old opposition voter, told the BBC. “I know there is a lot of geopolitical tension from Russia. Political risk, but this could be a critical moment, a turning point.”

Although Georgia became a candidate to join the EU in December, the move was later frozen by the bloc due to “democratic backsliding – in particular Russian-style “foreign influence” laws targeting groups that receive Western funding.

The Soviet Union may have ceased to exist more than three decades ago, but Moscow still views much of the old Soviet empire as its backyard and Russia’s sphere of influence.

It will appreciate the “pragmatic” Russia policy promised by Georgian Dream during its election campaign, not to mention Brussels’ decision earlier this year to halt Georgia’s EU accession process.

Georgian Dream promises voters they will still join the EU, but it also accuses the opposition of helping the West open a new front in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In 2008, Georgia’s neighbor Russia retained 20% of its territory after a five-day war.

Bidina Ivanishvili’s rhetoric has become increasingly anti-Western, suggesting that a fourth term for the Georgian Dream could pull the country back into Russia’s orbit.

The party’s founder said after the vote in Tbilisi that Georgians have a simple choice: either a government that serves them, or an opposition that is “foreign agents who only carry out foreign orders.”

He has repeatedly spoken of a “global war party” pushing the opposition to join the war in Ukraine, while the Georgian Dream party is positioned as a peace party. For many voters, the message worked.

“For me, my family and my grandchildren,” GD voter Tatinatin Gvelesiani, 55, told the BBC at a polling station in Kojori, southwest of the capital. Above all I want peace for all Georgians, which “only the Georgian dream” can bring, she added.

Election observers have reported a range of irregularities across the country, from ballots stuffed inside polling stations to voter intimidation outside polling stations.

With less than an hour until polls close, pro-Western President Salome Zurabichvili called on opposition voters not to be intimidated.

“Don’t be afraid. This is all just psychological pressure on you,” she said during a live speech on social media.

Intimidation turned violent for Azat Karimov, 35, the local chairman of the United National Movement, the largest opposition party in Marneuli, south of Tbilisi.

He told the BBC how he came under attack when his team tried to investigate falsified ballots by Georgian Dream officials. He also claimed that voters were bribed to support the ruling party.

“[A Georgian Dream councillor]Bringing 10 to 20 people…I told him to calm down before the police arrived. The MP immediately started beating me.

In the run-up to the vote, Georgian monitoring groups highlighted Russia’s election-focused disinformation campaign.

The Kremlin denies interfering in Georgia’s internal affairs and claims that Western countries have made “unprecedented attempts to interfere.”

Earlier this year, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergei Naryshkin accused the United States of planning a “color revolution” in Georgia.