The President of Georgia does not recognize the election results and calls on the public to protest against the government. international

Georgia’s president, Salome Zurabishvili, has joined the opposition by refusing to recognize the results of Saturday’s elections, which, according to an official investigation, again gave an absolute majority to the populist Georgian Dream party (SG), which has ruled for 12 years. Has been legalized. “These elections cannot be recognized, we do not accept them. They have deprived us of the right to vote. Nothing can legitimize these elections,” the head of state said this Sunday at a press conference surrounded by the main opposition leaders.

Zurabishvili accused Russia of waging “special operations” and “a new type of hybrid war” against the Georgian people and called on citizens to protest on Monday against the fraud. The Georgian president, who was elected by popular vote in 2018 with the support of the SG, has distanced herself from the ruling party due to increasingly repressive laws and what she considers deviations toward rapprochement with the Kremlin and European accession. . , the process of which was halted this summer due to the approval of rules contrary to Community law. Thus, Zurabishvili has become a unifying element of the disintegrating opposition, which had signed a minimum agreement to rule in a coalition in case Georgian Dream was defeated. Now, however, the entire opposition has refused to recognize the results, and two of the four coalitions have announced that they will not collate deputy records.

International and local observers of Saturday’s elections in Georgia this Sunday condemned numerous irregularities, including coercion, voter intimidation and bribery, after the SG won, according to Central Election Commission calculations. The party will have reconfirmed its absolute majority by gaining 54% of the vote – six points more than in the 2016 and 2020 elections – and 89 out of 150 seats in parliament.

International observers monitoring the elections have drawn attention to a number of irregularities that occurred before and during the electoral process, ranging from difficulties in guaranteeing secret ballot to intimidation and vote buying. “All this information leads us to question the fairness of the process,” Iulian Bulai, leader of the observer group of the Council of Europe (PACE), said at a press conference in Tbilisi this Sunday.

A dozen European delegates asked in an open letter that “the results should not be recognized internationally,” because they did not meet democratic standards and there was “electoral fraud.” The foreign ministers of Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia also expressed their “concern” about “irregularities” found by international observers and called on the Georgian government to investigate them. The one person who doesn’t seem to care is Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who has become an example for the SG’s ultra-conservative turn, and who will touch down in Tbilisi on Monday on an official visit. He was also the first president to congratulate the Georgian party on its victory, even before the first official results were known.

In total, 530 observers from PACE, the European Parliament, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the OECD Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly monitored approximately 62% of the 3,111 votes cast. The elections were held in an atmosphere of great polarization at polling stations on Saturday in the Caucasian country of 3.7 million inhabitants.

The observers’ provisional report indicates that in 6% of polling stations, “the process is evaluated negatively, mainly due to evidence of voter pressure and intimidation,” which draws attention to the fact that it is a Is “figure”. In addition, 24% of schools observed that “secret voting was compromised” due to the way ballot papers were marked or placed in the ballot box.

In fact, a video has gone viral of an interview with an observer from the Azerbaijan mission independent of the OSCE mission, who assures in front of the microphone that the process is clean, while behind him, one can see how a voter casts his vote. Photographs a ballot, something that is prohibited. Among other issues, this prohibition attempts to prevent voters from proving their vote.

According to Eoghan Murphy, head of the ODIHR mission, there was “widespread pressure” on voters from members of the ruling party, “particularly towards civil servants and the economically vulnerable”, for example taking weeks of data and identification from voters. Collecting letters before voting. The organization also claims to have received allegations of “vote buying” and people voting more than once. Similarly, international observers criticize the funding gap between the ruling party and the opposition campaign – including the use of state funds and actions, the “politicization” of the Central Election Commission – along with changes in its statutes, leading to lower attendance. There have been “attacks against people and property” of opposition members – and of opposition parties during the campaign. However, international observers declined to assess the outcome of the vote, as it is outside their jurisdiction.

Joe Wilson, chairman of the US Congressional Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also condemned “credible allegations of systematic violations” as well as “Russia’s well-documented efforts to disrupt the elections.” A recent investigation by Bloomberg news agency states that, between 2017 and 2020, Russia cut off Many Georgian state bodies, from the Central Bank to the Election Commission. A few days before the election, Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev – who discovered the identity of the pro-Russian rebels who shot down flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 – said in an interview that he had received hacks from Russia’s foreign intelligence service. Emails were received. SVR, in which they reportedly propose “radical measures” to prevent Georgia from becoming a “new Armenia” (the neighboring country moving away from the Russian orbit to move closer to the EU). The journalist says the plans were to declare a “great victory”.

Indeed, on Saturday, just hours before the polls closed, Georgian Dream leaders were already talking about a “solid majority” and demanding that the opposition commit to recognizing the result. Two hours before voting ended, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said: “The data confirm that a solid victory is guaranteed for the ruling party,” although he did not specify where the data came from, because, at that time, At the time, ballot boxes were still sealed and polling companies could not release their exit polls. According to Efe, the prime minister reiterated on Saturday morning, “We already knew that the opposition would not have the dignity to resign for defeat, but it is already a tradition,” and that the electoral commission would like to be freed from allegations of fraud. Refused.

Although the opposition expected votes for the SG to drop significantly after the protests this spring, results published by the electoral commission indicate that it has increased its base by approximately 200,000 votes. To do this, all ballots of those who did not vote in 2020 had to be taken into account, in addition to all votes lost by the extreme right and remaining extra-parliamentary forces. The opposition, on the other hand, despite participating more unitedly than in previous elections, was able to add barely 2,000 ballots and the percentage vote dropped by 2.4%.

The results are even more worrying in rural districts, where support for the ruling party has increased by between 15 and 30 points, reaching almost 90% of the vote in places like Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda; and 80% in Marneuli. These are also the districts where, according to My Vote observers – a coalition of NGOs – “systematic” electoral violations have occurred. The organization confirms that a large number of “serious and substantial” irregularities were part of a “large-scale scheme aimed at altering the results of the elections”. The International Society for Free Elections and Democracy (ISFED), which had 1,500 observers on the ground, also says irregularities “had a decisive impact on the outcome.”