(Bloomberg) -- Georgia’s ruling party, founded by its richest man, claimed victory in parliamentary elections Saturday amid opposition protests that the polls were rigged.
The Georgian Dream of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili received 52.6% of votes counted to claim its third straight election victory over the main opposition bloc that proposed his arch rival, former President Mikheil Saakashvili, as its candidate for prime minister.
Central Election Commission chairperson Tamar Zhvania said about 36.9% of votes have been counted and total turnout was over 56%. All major exit polls showed the Georgian Dream would win, with possible runoffs in some regional areas, according to the ruling party’s general secretary Irakli Kobakhidze.
The United National Movement and United Opposition bloc won 24.2% of the vote. Ivanishvili founded the Georgian Dream in 2012 to challenge Saakashvili, the Rose Revolution leader who’d been in exile since his presidency ended in 2013 after the government accused him of abuse of power, which he denies. Opposition supporters are protesting outside the election commission over dissatisfaction of the results.
While officials have won praise for limiting the spread of coronavirus in Georgia, with far fewer cases reported than in neighboring states, the number of infections and deaths have been rising again in recent weeks. Georgia’s economy has been hit hard by the epidemic, with the central bank forecasting a 5% decline in gross domestic product this year and the national currency tumbling to a record low 3.5 per dollar in March as tourism income dwindled amid lockdown restrictions. The lari has declined more than 11% this year so far.
A record 50 parties and electoral blocs competed for the 150 seats in the parliament of the Caucasus nation of 3.7 million. Georgian Dream won a super majority of 115 seats at the 2016 elections, but the threshold for entering parliament this time was cut to 1% under a revised voting system intended to expand representation of minority parties.
Parties contested for 120 seats via party list under proportional representation, while the remainder were decided by majority vote, compared to 77 and 73 respectively in 2016.
Election observers will deliver their preliminary conclusions on Nov. 1.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Advertisement