Thousands of Georgians heeded the pro-European opposition's call for mass demonstrations and took to the streets on October 28. The protesters accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party of manipulating the results of the October 26 parliamentary elections, AFP reported.
According to the almost complete results announced by the election commission, the ruling Georgian Dream party won 53.92% of the vote compared to 37.78% collected by the coalition of 4 pro-Western opposition parties.
For months, the opposition accused "Georgian Dream" of diverting Tbilisi from its goal of joining the EU and bringing it back into Russia's orbit.
About 20,000 people gathered outside the parliament building in central Tbilisi on October 28 after the opposition called for protests.
Georgia's pro-EU president Salome Zurabishvili said "quite sophisticated" fraud schemes were used in the weekend vote.
The president declared the election results "illegitimate," claiming there was a "Russian special operation" to interfere in the election.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the accusations and said "there was no interference."
"It is very difficult to blame a government, and this is not my role either, but the methodology is Russian," Zurabishvili said, adding that it is difficult to work with Russia.
A group of leading election observers in Georgia said at a press conference that they had found evidence of sophisticated, large-scale fraud that swung the election result in favor of the ruling party.
They called for a swift investigation and demanded the annulment of at least 15% of all votes cast in the election. Observers said they had documented evidence of electoral fraud in dozens of polling stations. | BGNES
