Fighting mood

Members of the opposition called for the annulment of Saturday’s election, which, according to Georgia’s Central Election Commission (CEC), gave the predominantly pro-Russian Georgian Dream party 54% of the vote compared to the opposition bloc’s 38%.

A joint report published on Sunday by European election observers, including the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said that while the election offered voters “a wide choice” of candidates, the voting was “marred by an uneven playing field, pressure and tension”.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who on Sunday called on citizens to protest against what she described as a “Russian special operation” designed to keep Georgian Dream in power, addressed a crowd of around 20,000 people outside the Georgian Parliament in Tbilisi on Monday.

“I want to tell you that those of you who are here today — you did not lose the elections,” Zourabichvili said. “Your vote was stolen, and they tried to steal your future as well. But no one has the right to do that, and you will not allow it.”

“A complete picture must be drawn of how this massive, systematic theft of votes took place. This unprecedented, pre-planned operation that robbed us of our ballots, our parliament, and our constitution,” Zourabichvili continued, stressing that “the results they wrote down will not be the final ones”.

For their part, Georgian Dream representatives, including Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, hailed Georgian Dream’s “landslide” victory in the elections, asserting that while “irregularities happen everywhere”, Saturday’s vote was largely “in line with legal principles and the principle of democratic elections”.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán angered his fellow EU leaders by flying to Tbilisi on Monday to meet with Kobakhidze to show his support. While there, he echoed the ruling party’s stance by saying that the election had been “fair and democratic”, according to Reuters.

In response to the public outcry, the CEC announced on Monday that it would recount ballots at five polling stations in each electoral district to “verify the data”, but so far, no plans for a more comprehensive recount have yet been announced.

The protests against the results look set to continue, with many Georgians determined to fight the outcome of an election they believe was rigged. “Many around me are once again preparing for water cannons and gas, if not today, then in the next few days,” Mariam, one of the protesters who attended the Monday rally, told Georgian news outlet Paper Kartuli. “In any case, we are in the mood to fight, and I think we should make it clear that we do not recognise the results of these elections.”

“Many are seriously considering leaving the country,” Nuki, another protester, told the outlet. “But before I make such a decision, there is still one more battle to be fought. And the chances of victory are high.”