Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili yesterday urged the West to support opposition protests against the official results of a weekend parliamentary election in which the governing party was declared victorious amid voting irregularities and allegations of Russian meddling.
Zourabichvili, who refused to recognize the official results, told The Associated Press in an interview that the south Caucasus nation has fallen victim to Russian pressure aimed at derailing its plans to join the EU.
“We’ve seen that Russian propaganda was directly used,” said Zourabichvili, a fierce critic of the governing party.
Photo: Reuters
She said Georgia’s government has been “working hand-in-hand with Russia” and probably had help from the Russian security services.
On Sunday, Zourabichvili stood alongside opposition leaders and urged Georgians to join a rally on the main street of the capital, Tbilisi, last night to protest what she called a “total falsification, a total stealing of your votes.”
She told the AP that she expects the US and the EU to back the protests.
Photo: Reuters
“We need to have the firm support of our European partners, of our American partners,” Zourabichvili said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on X that “the Georgian people embraced democracy yesterday” and urged Georgia’s political leaders to “respect the rule of law, repeal legislation that undermines fundamental freedoms, address deficiencies in the electoral process, and move Georgia toward its Euro-Atlantic future.”
The Kremlin has rejected the accusations of interference.
“We aren’t meddling in Georgia’s internal affairs, and we have no intention of meddling,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
He said it was the West that had tried to influence the outcome of the vote.
Asked about Zourabichvili’s call for the Georgians to join protests, he described it as an attempt to destabilize the country.
The Central Election Commission on Sunday said that the governing Georgian Dream party received 54.8 percent of Saturday’s votes with almost all ballots counted. The party — established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia — has become increasingly authoritarian over the past year, adopting laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech.
The EU suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely, because of a Russian-style “foreign influence law” passed in June. Many Georgians viewed Saturday’s vote as a pivotal referendum on the opportunity to join the EU.
The election campaign in the nation of 3.7 million people, which borders Russia, was marked by a bitter fight for votes and allegations of a smear campaign. European electoral observers said the election took place in a “divisive” environment marked by intimidation and instances of vote buying, double voting and physical violence.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS