Georgia: the pro-Russian party "Georgian dream" wins with 52.99%. The oppositions "stolen victory"

‘Georgian Dream’, the party in power for 12 years, wins the elections in Georgia again with 53% of the votes and defeats the pro-European coalition which stops at around 40%.

Il result, still unofficial however, is contested by the leaders of two opposition parties who do not recognize the victory of the pro-Russian party. “Victory has been stolen from the Georgian people,” said Tina Bokuchava and Nika Gvaramia, leaders respectively of the Coalition for Change and Unity, two of the opposition forces that had coalesced ahead of the vote.

The clear advantage of the ‘Georgian Dream’ was announced by the Central Election Commission of Tbilisi after the exit polls had shown diametrically opposite data: according to the findings of the independent institutes released by TV channels close to the opposition a few minutes after the closing of the polls, the pro-European forces had obtained over 52%, gaining an absolute majority. A figure that had led the Georgian president herself, the pro-European Salome Zourabichvili, to state that “European Georgia wins with 52% despite attempts to rig the elections and without the votes of the diaspora”.

Zourabichvili had denounced before the polls closed acts of violence “deeply troubling” on the sidelines of voting procedures, speaking of “violent and deeply troubling incidents occurring at various polling stations”.

Shortly after however the TV close to the government releases more exit polls which completely reverse the situation and put the party in power in the lead. A finding that will be confirmed later by official data: according to the Georgian Election Commission, when over 70% of the seats have been counted, the governing party is in the lead with 53%. The first (and currently only) European leader to rejoice over the victory of the pro-Russian party is the Hungarian Viktor Orban, who with suspicious timing, a few minutes after the polls closed he congratulated the leaders of ‘Georgian Dream’ and spoke of an ‘overwhelming victory’

“Georgian Dream”, founded in 2012 by the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, a personal friend of Putin, whose personal wealth is estimated at around 7.4 billion dollars, almost a quarter of the entire national GDP, will therefore continue to govern the country, while the four main pro-EU parties united under the umbrella of the “Charter for Georgia”, despite all exceeding the 5% threshold, will remain in opposition.

The vote, which took place in a tense, polarized climate characterized by violencehad been presented by the opposition as the most important electoral step in the country’s history since 1991, when the Georgians decided on independence from Moscow. According to pro-EU parties, the victory of ‘Georgian Dream’ will bring Tbilisi even closer to the Kremlin’s sphere of influence, distancing it from Europe.

Tbilisi’s accession process to the EU was suspended at the beginning of the year by Brussels after the party in power had approved, amid street protests, the law on ‘foreign agents’, inspired by Moscow’s legislation and for this reason it was renamed ‘Russian law’.