Irakli Kobakhidze, Georgia’s Prime Minister declared a “landslide” victory for the ruling party Georgian Dream, that earned 54% of votes in recent elections despite significant irregularities and claims from the opposition of vote rigging and violence. The preliminary results are reported to stand in contrast to the exit polls by opposition-affiliated media, who said that four opposition parties had beaten the ruling party.

Speaking to the VOP in an exclusive interview, Kobakhidze admitted that while “irregularities happen everywhere,” he insisted that the election environment was largely peaceful across the country’s 3,111 polling stations, with only a few reported incidents.

The opposition politicians, including pro-West President Salome Zourabichvili, branded Tuesday’s election a “total falsification.” Protest rally is set for next Monday outside the parliament. The processes of voting have been rebuked by election observers, who have spoken to an “uneven field” and the effect that a reported violations may have carried on the outcome of the results. The U.S and the European Union have agreed with the sentiments and threatened to conduct an independent poll on the electoral malpractice.

Election time is a hard one for Georgian Dream, as they are increasingly accused of increasingly authoritarian practices, like introducing media and NGO legislation almost identical to that in Russia. The European Union has already frozen Georgia’s application to become a member, saying it is suffering from “democratic backsliding” since being granted candidate status in December 2022. Despite all this, the Georgian leadership has made statements that it wants to relaunch the talks with the EU.

The ties that the ruling party has with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing thinking would be much more limiting in the pursuit of Georgia to further get closer to the EU side, especially as Viktor Orban is due to make a visit to Tbilisi after the controversial polls. Observers from monitor groups have complained of huge problems such as intimidation, bribery and ballot-stuffing calls for an immediate reevaluation process of the election process.

The opposition, holding 61 seats in the 150-seat parliament, has announced that it will not accept the results of the election, claiming Georgian Dream stole the vote. They are to boycott the sessions of parliament, adding to the already complex political situation. The majority of the ruling party is not enough to pass significant constitutional changes or a ban on opposition parties.

He justifies the conduct of this election, arguing that an electronic vote-counting system has been in place to avoid manipulation during the counting process, making it impossible for fraudulent behavior. However, reports abound from monitoring organizations citing all sorts of violations which nullify the legitimacy of this whole electoral process.

As tensions build up in regards to Georgia’s future political trajectory, much angst pervades over the notion that this country could go backwards toward Russia, speculations which have been fuelled by quotes ascribed to Georgian Dream’s founding father, Bidzina Ivanishvili. That aside, Georgia maintains that it remains firmly on course with its pro-Western political direction, exemplified in part by pointing out that it has not diplomatically recognized Russia, who took and occupies parts of this country since the August/2008 conflict.

Days are decisive for Georgian democratic processes and aspirations to enter Europe, as protest rallies are announced and political tensions build.

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