Georgia’s electoral commission has declared the ruling Georgian Dream party the winner of Saturday’s vote. Opposition parties are not recognizing the results, while OSCE observers spoke of “democratic backsliding.”
Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party won Saturday’s parliamentary election, receiving more than 54% of the vote, the electoral commission said on Sunday.
The result is a setback for those Georgians who would like their country to integrate into the EU, as the Georgian Dream party is seen as tending more toward Russia than the West, despite declarations to the contrary.
Several pro-European opposition coalitions have not recognized the preliminary result and have announced protests.
EU dreams on hold
Georgian Dream, a conservative, nationalist party founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili — who largely made his fortune with business deals in Russia — secured 54.09% of the votes with almost all ballots counted, election official Giorgi Kalandarishvili announced in the capital,Tbilisi.
He said a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances received 37.58% of the votes.
Although Georgian Dream says it wants Georgia to join the EU, the fact that it also favors closer cooperation with Russia would seem to conflict with this declared aim.
Brussels says the country’s membership application is frozen, citing what it sees as authoritarian tendencies on the part of the Bulgarian government after it enacted a number of controversial laws.
Those laws include sweeping curbs on LGBTQ+ rights modeled on similar Russian legislation.
Bad marks from international observers
Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said
the conduct of the election was evidence of “democratic backsliding” in the country.
Its monitoring mission said it had noted cases of vote buying and double voting, particularly in rural areas, and said the elections were marred by media polarization and hate speech directed both at the opposition and at civil society.
The mission also alleged that the Georgian Dream party had promoted Russian disinformation and leveled attacks at Western partners during its campaign.
Credit: DW News
