According to official results, the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party (KO, populist conservative), in power since 2012 and led by the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, has won the October 26 parliamentary elections with almost 54% of the vote (89 of 150 seats). However, the pro-European opposition, including a coalition of several parties, have refused to recognise the result and take their seats in the new parliament. They complain of massive irregularities, and this claim is supported by several independent observers, from the OSCE or Georgian civil society, some of whom have called for the result to be annulled. The government has denied the accusations.
For her part, President Salome Zurabishvili, who had worked to unify the opposition in order to move closer to the European Union and away from Moscow, denounced “a special operation by Russia, a new type of hybrid war” to “rig” and “steal” the vote from the Georgian people, who Zurabishvili called on to demonstrate.
Several European leaders also denounced irregularities, with the notable exception of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (Fidesz, far right), who rushed to Tbilisi to congratulate Ivanishvili and his Georgian counterpart Irakli Kobakhidze.
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