Thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in the capital of Tbilisi to rally against the results of a contested weekend parliamentary election in which the increasingly anti-western governing party was declared victorious amid reports of irregularities and voter intimidation.
The demonstration outside the parliament in the city centre was organised by the country’s pro-western opposition, which has refused to concede defeat and has accused the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party of election rigging.
The pro-western Georgian president, Salome Zourabichvili, whose role is largely ceremonial, said on Sunday she did not recognise the official results and claimed the country had fallen victim to a “Russian special operation” aimed at pulling it back into Moscow’s orbit and derailing its plan to join the European Union.
“They stole your vote and tried to steal your future. But no one has the right to do that, and you will not allow it,” Zourabichvili told the crowd on Monday, who waved EU and Georgian flags.
At the protest, several opposition leaders demanded new elections, to be overseen by an international commission, and announced that their parties would not take up their seats in parliament, setting the stage for a prolonged political crisis.
The country’s electoral commission announced on Sunday that the increasingly authoritarian GD secured 54% of the vote, winning 89 seats in the parliament.
Voters in the Caucasus country of almost 4 million people had headed to the polls on Saturday in a watershed election to decide whether GD, which has been in power since 2012 and steered the country into a conservative course away from the west and closer to Russia, should get another four-year term.
The Georgian opposition contends that the ruling party has engaged in widespread election tampering, citing stark discrepancies between the initial results and an exit poll conducted by western pollsters that showed the ruling party winning only 40% of the vote.
A preliminary report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said it “noted reports of intimidation, coercion and pressure on voters”, calling the conduct of the election evidence of “democratic backsliding” in the country.
The result thwarts the opposition’s hopes for a united pro-western coalition of four blocs and in effect stalls the country’s aspirations for EU integration.
“I am here because the government rigged the elections, stealing our voices and our right to choose our future,” said Kato Bochorishvili, a 21-year-old economics student. “We want the world to know that we chose Europe, not Russia. I just hope the world can hear us,” she said.
Support for the pro-western opposition groups generally comes from urban and younger voters, who envision their political future with the EU.
GD, led by the secretive billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, has made conservative and illiberal values central to its campaign, alongside saying that the pro-western opposition would pull Georgia into a conflict with Russia, similar to Ukraine’s.
The US and the European Union urged full investigations of the result of Saturday’s election.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, criticised “misuse of public resources, vote buying, and voter intimidation”, which he said “contributed to an uneven playing field”.
Germany’s foreign ministry condemned “significant irregularities” and France also expressed concerns over “irregularities observed before and during the vote”, urging a full investigation.
But western officials stopped short of declaring the election stolen or falsified and refrained from calling for a boycott of the results.
In a move that angered fellow EU leaders and the Georgian opposition, Viktor Orbán landed in Tbilisi on Monday after becoming the first western leader to congratulate the ruling GD party for its “overwhelming victory”.
Orbán, who has recently cultivated close ties with the GD party, was spotted entering the Marriott Hotel just steps away from where the protest was taking place.
It is not immediately clear where the Georgian opposition goes from here, with many in the country visibly frustrated by what they say is a lack of western support.
The election results also suggest GD retains support from a core group of Georgian voters, particularly in industrial heartlands and conservative, poorer regions where economic progress has been slow and the appeal of Europe feels distant and faint.
Last spring, tens of thousands of people already protested in Tbilisi to demonstrate against a controversial “foreign agents’” bill that critics argued was designed to stifle the country’s media and NGOs. But those protests gradually faded after a police crackdown and a series of arrests. Monday’s demonstrations were significantly smaller, suggesting the protest movement lacks momentum.
Anton Shekhovtsov, the director of the Vienna-based Centre for Democratic Integrity, said Europe’s cautious response showed it did not “have the spirit and consensus to openly challenge the Georgian government. Without any clear, explicit support either from the election monitoring missions or the EU, Georgians are left alone today in their fight for a European future.”
On Monday, some protesters appeared deflated.
“Georgian Dream has already won,” said Irma Khoperia, a 55-year-old artist. “They will never give up power voluntarily. They’ll turn this country into a dictatorship.”
GD has been accused by critics at home and abroad of plans to move the country in an authoritarian direction after Ivanishvili vowed to ban all the leading opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers if his party was re-elected.
Like others at the protest that night, Khoperia called on the west to sanction the GD leader and his party.
“We would like the west to support us more. They should stand by our side and speak out against this vote theft,” Khoperia said.
Other protesters vowed to return to the streets until a new election was held.
“It’s very difficult, but I remain hopeful – otherwise, I wouldn’t be here,” said Tekle Makashvili, a PhD student in Tbilisi. “We will keep fighting until this country is free again.”
