Thousands of people gathered in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, late on Monday to protest the results of parliamentary elections after the country’s president denounced them as rigged in favor of Moscow.
The US called for an investigation and the EU was critical of the vote, in which the ruling Georgian Dream party — which advocates closer ties with Russia — claimed victory.
Pro-European opposition parties denounced the outcome as falsified.
Photo: EPA-EFE
They drew support from Salome Zourabichvili, who holds the largely ceremonial post of president and appealed to backers to protest in the capital.
“Your voice was stolen and they attempted to steal your future as well, but no one has the right to do that,” Zourabichvili told people outside the parliament building.
Organizers estimated the crowd in the tens of thousands, while police did not give numbers.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The rally, which lasted just over 90 minutes, had blocked off traffic on the city’s main avenue and remained peaceful.
Members of the opposition declined their parliament mandates and demanded a new election overseen by international authorities.
The Georgian Dream party, which has ruled since 2012, won 54 percent support for another four years in power, the Georgian Central Election Commission said.
Photo: AFP
Four opposition parties backing a pro-European charter drawn up by Zourabichvili garnered a combined 38 percent, the commission said.
Zourabichvili urged Georgians to join protests against what she called a “Russian special operation” aimed at restoring Moscow’s influence and thwarting Georgia’s goal of membership in the EU and NATO.
The speaker of Georgia’s parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, accused the president of spreading “disinformation” aimed at “destabilizing the country alongside the opposition,” as he defended the result at a news briefing Monday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
One protester, Gia Ubilava, said that he had been driven out of his home in the breakaway region of Abkhazia by Russian forces.
“And now they want me to go back to them and live together in a Russian-run state?” he said. “I don’t think so.”
Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili has accused a “global war party” in the West of plotting to oust his government and to push Georgia into a conflict with the Kremlin.
The said insists it is still committed to European integration even as it has improved ties with Moscow.
International observers led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe criticized “highly divisive campaign rhetoric and widespread reports of pressure on voters” during the election.
While they did not challenge the overall result, their election report said that “the many advantages taken by the ruling party contributed to an already uneven playing field.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a “full investigation” of alleged election violations in a statement that refrained from questioning the result.
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
US ELECTION: Polls show that the result is likely to be historically tight. However, a recent Iowa poll showed Harris winning the state that Trump won in 2016 and 2020 US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris courted voters angered by the Gaza war while former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump doubled down on violent rhetoric with a comment about journalists being shot as the tense US election campaign entered its final hours. The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president frantically blitzed several swing states as they tried to win over the last holdouts with less than 36 hours left until polls open on election day today. Trump predicted a “landslide,” while Harris told a raucous rally in must-win Michigan that “we have momentum — it’s
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
RSS