Georgians voted yesterday in parliamentary elections seen as a test of the pro-Western government’s democratic credentials at a time of dangerously fraught tensions with neighboring Russia.
The election, which polls forecast will be won by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement, opened under sunny skies in the strategic former Soviet republic’s ancient capital Tbilisi.
But dark political clouds gathered over this mountainous country of just under 5 million people as the election stoked internal tensions and a row over Russia’s support for separatist rebels in two regions gathered momentum.
At a polling station next to Tbilisi’s Soviet-era parliament building, Anya, 56, said she had voted for Saakashvili’s party “because I believe that he is doing what’s best for our country.”
But opposition supporters have already denounced the vote as a fraud.
“I voted for the opposition, but it doesn’t matter because they are going to throw out my vote anyway,” Vano Zurabishvili, 34, said after casting his ballot. “We have no democracy in this country.”
Diplomats and analysts have warned that the vote will have to be conducted fairly if Georgia is to get Western support in a row over two separatist regions backed by Russia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
On the eve of the vote, Saakashvili made an appeal for national unity, saying Russia would take advantage of any unrest.
“We have to realize how important tomorrow’s elections are. Our enemy wants tomorrow’s elections to turn into turmoil and internal confrontation,” he said in a televised address.
Tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi soared ahead of the election, with Saakashvili saying earlier this month that the two countries had come close to war and Russia sending extra troops to Abkhazia.
Last week a senior Georgian minister said that war in Abkhazia had only been avoided thanks to a phone call by France’s foreign minister to his Russian counterpart.
Georgia’s opposition has already called its supporters to take to the streets yesterday night. Opposition leader Levan Gachechiladze said he would call on supporters to force their way into the electoral commission office if authorities “do not release the real results of the vote.”
“The people have every right to protect their votes,” he said.
The main Western election monitoring body, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has sent 550 observers to monitor the polling and is to deliver a verdict today.
A country of soaring mountain peaks, wine and ancient churches, Georgia has suffered through civil wars, the breakaway of two regions and sustained political turmoil since gaining independence with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Saakashvili has won praise for economic reforms since coming to power in 2004 after the peaceful Rose Revolution and supporters describe his government as a beacon of democracy in the often corrupt and authoritarian former Soviet Union.
But his goal of joining NATO has set him sharply at odds with Russia, which sees enlargement of the alliance as encroachment on its sphere of influence.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS