In Tbilisi, thousands of protesters are demanding new elections – in the world

Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of Tbilisi on Sunday to demand new parliamentary elections after the ruling “Dream of Georgia” announced victory in Saturday’s election.

Georgia’s opposition parties have rejected the initial results of the parliamentary elections.

After counting the votes in almost all polling stations, the “Georgia Dream” is in the lead with 48% of the vote, while the opposition coalition won 45.6% of the vote in a proportional vote that will determine 120 of the 150 seats in parliament, the Central Election Commission said.

Georgia’s dream leader, former prime minister billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, has said his party has “won elections for the third time in a row”.

However, the opposition leader, former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who currently lives in Ukraine and chairs the country’s working group on political and economic reforms, Volodymyr Zelensky, said the Georgia dream had massively falsified the election results and called on opposition supporters to “mobilize”.

The demand for new elections could lead to a new political crisis in Georgia, where elections are often followed by accusations of falsification and mass demonstrations.

Protesters, many of whom wore face masks, gathered at the parliament building in Tbilisi’s central square. Addressing the assembly, opposition leaders said the election results were falsified and new elections were needed.

“All Georgian opposition parties are united in their decision not to take a seat in the new parliament,” said Nika Melia, one of the leaders of Saakashvili’s opposition national party, the United National Movement.

“We will fight until the goal is reached,” Melia said, urging opposition supporters to gather for protests next Sunday.

“We will not allow the ‘Georgian dream’ to steal our voices,” one of the protesters told AFP.

International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly reported that the elections were far from perfect, but that “fundamental freedoms have been respected”.

Local observers reported various irregularities, including re-voting and falsification of results.

The Georgian branch of Transparency International said the election was a setback for Georgian democracy, but the GYLA, which conducted the election observation, reported serious irregularities.

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