Georgia’s Ruling Party Wins Key Election, Triggering Opposition Protests – JP

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Moscow has followed Georgia’s parliamentary elections almost as closely as the upcoming US presidential contest. Oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili’s ruling “Georgian Dream” party has been pursuing increasingly pro-Russian policies since the start of the war in Ukraine, triggering a falling out with the West and accusations of ‘democratic backsliding’, in other words, failing to follow the globalist agenda. Amid the heat of the campaign, the party vowed to liquidate the opposition if it won a supermajority. In the end, official results gave Georgian Dream 54% — not enough for the constitutional majority it was hoping for, but sufficient to stay in power. The opposition claims the vote was rigged and is trying to overturn the result through street protests.

According to the official results, the ruling Georgian Dream party secured 54%, winning 89 out of 150 seats in parliament — roughly the same as before the vote. But it’s a long way from the 113 seats needed for a constitutional majority, the party’s big aim. Had it succeeded, the party pledged it would ban leading opposition parties and impose other radical constitutional reforms. Nonetheless, the result still keeps Ivanishvili’s party, which has clashed with the West over its adoption of anti-liberal legislation over the past two years, in power, reported Russian independent news outlet The Bell.

The opposition did not poll badly overall. All four parties that agreed to work together against Georgian Dream cleared the 5% threshold required to enter parliament. Collectively they secured 37.6% of the vote. After a day of talks following the election, the parties and President Salome Zourabichvili, who acts as a symbolic opposition leader, announced that they did not accept the election result and would not take up their seats in the new parliament. They staged a protest outside Georgia’s parliament in central Tbilisi on Monday evening. Zourabichvili labeled the elections a “Russian special operation” and claimed that recognizing the result would be to recognize Georgia’s subordination to Russia.