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.
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