Thousands rally in Georgia after contested vote

TBILISI: Thousands of Georgians took to the streets on Monday to protest against the ruling party´s victory in parliamentary polls denounced as “stolen” by the pro-Western opposition, while Georgia´s president alleged to AFP that the vote was rigged using “sophisticated” methods she linked to Russia.

The Caucasus country -- rocked by mass protests earlier this year -- has plunged into political uncertainty since Saturday´s vote, with Brussels, Washington, France and Germany condemning “irregularities”.

According to near-complete results announced by the electoral commission, the ruling Georgian Dream party won 53.92 percent of the vote, compared with the 37.78 percent garnered by a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances.

Georgian Dream has for months been accused by the opposition of steering Tbilisi away from its goal of joining the EU and back into Russia´s orbit. Some 20,000 people gathered outside the main parliament building in central Tbilisi Monday evening after the opposition called for protests, AFP journalists saw.

Speaking to AFP, Georgia´s pro-European president Salome Zurabishvili claimed the use of “quite sophisticated” fraudulent schemes in the weekend vote The president had earlier declared the election results “illegitimate”, alleging a “Russian special operation” to interfere with the election -- a claim swiftly rejected by the Kremlin, whose spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “there was no intervention”.

“It´s very difficult to accuse a government, and that´s not my role, but the methodology is Russian,” Zurabishvili told AFP, adding that it was “difficult to deal with” Russia”, which she called “threatening”.

A group of Georgia´s leading election monitors told a news conference Monday that they had uncovered evidence of complex, large-scale fraud that altered the election outcome in favour of the ruling party.

They called for a swift investigation and demanded the annulment of at least 15 percent of all the votes cast in the elections, claiming to have documented evidence of election rigging at dozens of polling stations.

Defying the EU´s concerns over the vote, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban -- current holder of the bloc´s rotating presidency and the Kremlin´s closest EU associate -- arrived on Monday for a two-day visit to Tbilisi.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Monday insisted EU membership remained a “main priority” for his party and said he expected a “reset” with Brussels. The announced result gave Georgian Dream 89 seats in the 150-member parliament -- enough to govern but short of the supermajority it had sought to pass a constitutional ban on all the main opposition parties.

The opposition has refused to concede defeat to a party it accuses of pro-Kremlin authoritarianism. Opposition politicians have said they will renounce their mandates and will not enter the newly elected parliament.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken blasted “misuse of public resources, vote buying, and voter intimidation” which he said “contributed to an uneven playing field”. An EU parliament mission said the vote was evidence of Tbilisi´s “democratic backsliding”, adding that it had seen instances of “ballot box stuffing” and the “physical assault” of observers.

Germany´s foreign ministry condemned “significant irregularities” and France also expressed “concerns” over “irregularities observed before and during the vote”, urging a full investigation.

Tbilisi had already been rocked by massive demonstrations this year over several laws passed by Georgian Dream that the opposition denounced as repressive. Political analyst Ghia Nodia said he expected “large-scale protests” but not “serious upheaval”. “I anticipate Georgian Dream will launch a full-scale offensive against opponents, civil activists, and independent media,” he said.