After a wave of protests over fraud that allegedly led to the victory of the pro-Russian ruling party, Georgia’s Central Election Commission said it would recount ballots in about 14 percent of polling stations. Pro-Western opposition parties have refused to recognize the results of Saturday’s vote, which they claim were falsified in favor of the ruling Georgian Dream party. Tens of thousands of people took part in a protest in Tbilisi last night.
“District Election Commissions (DECs) will conduct recounts of ballots from five randomly selected polling stations in each electoral district,” the commission said in a statement. According to the results announced by the commission, ‘Georgian Dream’ won with 53.9 percent, compared to 37.7 percent for an opposition coalition. President Salome Zurabishvili declared the election results “illegitimate,” alleging election interference by a “Russian special operation,” a claim that was rejected by the Kremlin. Opposition parties have declared they will not enter the new “illegitimate” parliament and have called for “new” elections run by an “international electoral administration.”
Video on this topic
The United States and the European Union also condemned the election “irregularities,” and a group of observers said they had uncovered evidence of large-scale and complex fraud and called for the annulment of at least 15 percent of votes cast. Defying EU concerns about the vote, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, currently holding the bloc’s rotating presidency, arrived in Tbilisi yesterday for a two-day visit and was the only Western leader to congratulate the EU’s top leaders. ‘Georgian Dream’.
#Georgia #partial #recount #votes #fraud #reported #balance #Time
