All sides claim victory in Georgian election

[Pelican Press 0]

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All sides claim victory in Georgian election

Georgia’s ruling party and opposition parties have claimed victory in a parliamentary election that they say will determine if the former ******* republic moves towards the West or leans back towards Russia amid the war in Ukraine.

The vote pitted the ruling Georgian Dream party, in power since 2012, against four main blocs representing the pro-Western opposition.

Georgian Dream’s reclusive billionaire founder and ex-prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, said the election was “a very simple choice”.

“Either we elect a government that serves you, the Georgian people … or we elect an agent of a foreign country that will only fulfil the tasks of a foreign country,” Ivanishvili, considered to be the country’s main powerbroker, said as he cast his vote in Tbilisi on Saturday.

Rival exit polls gave sharply different projections for the election, with one survey showing the ruling party winning comfortably and two other polls showing the opposition would clinch a majority.

An exit poll by the Georgian Dream-supporting Imedi TV channel showed the ruling party winning 56 per cent.

But exit polls by the pro-opposition Formula and Mtavari Arkhi channels showed major gains for pro-Western opposition parties, who they suggested would together be able to form a majority in the 150 seat parliament.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the ruling party’s reclusive billionaire founder and onetime prime minister, claimed victory.

“It is a rare case in the world that the same party achieves such success in such a difficult situation – this is a good indicator of the talent of the Georgian people,” Ivanishvili said just minutes after polls closed.

“I assure you, our country will achieve great success in the next four years,” Ivanishvili said.

The opposition also claimed victory and said it was on course to win a majority. Early results are due imminently. Fuller results should be announced within hours.

“********* Georgia is winning with 52 per cent despite attempts to rig elections and without votes from the diaspora,” President Salome Zourabichvili said on X.

The Formula exit poll said that the ruling party would be the single largest party but that the four main opposition parties combined would have 83 seats.

Georgia’s four main opposition blocs are deeply divided, and it is unclear if they will be able to work together if they deprive Georgian Dream of its majority.

Georgia, which lost swathes of its territory to Russian-backed separatists in the 1990s and was defeated in a brief Russian invasion in 2008, was for decades one of the most pro-Western states to emerge from the ******* Union.

But since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Georgian Dream has moved the country decisively back towards Moscow’s orbit, accusing the West of trying to lure it into war.

The opposition calls the shift a betrayal of Georgia’s ********* future.

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