Pro-Western parties in Georgia protest election outcome: LIVE UPDATES
Crowds of protesters have gathered in the center of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, after the country’s pro-Western opposition parties declared they are rejecting the official results of parliamentary elections, alleging irregularities.
Preliminary results of Sunday’s elections showed the ruling Georgian Dream party got almost 54% of the vote, while no opposition party got more than 11%.
President Salome Zourabichvili has denounced the election as illegitimate and called for protests in the streets to force the government to call a new election.
Encouraging protests, Zourabichvili had told Georgians that their votes had been “stolen” and accused Georgian Dream of attempting to “steal the future” of the country. She also claimed to have spoken with multiple foreign governments that are also refusing to recognize the election as legitimate.
Despite Zourabichvili calling the election a “total fraud,” the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported that it observed no systemic voting irregularities. It did, however, claim to have observed incidents of vote-buying and pressure on public sector employees, but praised the diversity of choices on the ballot.
28 October 2024
18:01 GMTAfter several hours of speeches and chants, while protesters carried Georgian, Ukrainian and EU flags, the opposition leaders dismissed the crowd for the night. Protesters outside the parliament have begun to slowly disperse.
- 17:27 GMT
Earlier on Monday, protesters outside the parliament booed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, when he arrived at the meeting between the opposition and Western diplomats. Orban had argued that Georgia needed support from the EU instead of “useless lectures.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had endorsed the opposition protests as “fighting for democracy.”
- 17:25 GMT
The four pro-Western opposition parties have said that they would not negotiate with the government on any issues other than a new election. One of their demands is for a new election administered from the outside, presumably by the EU.
- 17:17 GMT
A regional security source has told TASS that “snipers trained in Ukraine” have arrived in Georgia to possibly stage a false-flag event during the protest. During the US-backed coup in Kiev, nationalists claimed that government snipers fired on the peaceful demonstrators, which was used as a trigger for the violent overthrow of the elected government.
- 17:13 GMT
Live streams from outside the parliament in Tbilisi on Monday evening showed some of the protesters waving Ukrainian flags. Several people were spotted wearing military uniforms with Georgian and Ukrainian flag patches, fueling speculation about the possible presence of militants from the ‘Georgian Legion’, a unit fighting on behalf of Kiev.
