Georgia ruling party wins polls

TBILISI

Georgia's ruling party has won the country's parliamentary elections, the central election commission said on Sunday, after the opposition decried the results as fraudulent.

Brussels had warned that Oct. 26's vote, seen as a crucial test of democracy in the Caucasus country, would determine the EU-candidate's chances of joining the bloc.

Official results from more than 99 percent of precincts showed the ruling Georgian Dream party winning 54.08 percent of the votes, while a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances garnered 37.58 percent, central election commission chair Giorgi Kalandarishvili told a news conference.

He said "The elections took place in a calm and free environment."

The results would give Georgian Dream 91 seats in the 150-member parliament, enough to govern but short of the 113-seat "constitutional majority" it had sought to institute a ban on all main opposition parties. “Georgian Dream has secured a solid majority", the party's executive secretary, Mamuka Mdinaradze, told reporters.

An exit poll by a U.S. pollster, Edison Research, had shown an opposite result.

Opposition parties said they did not recognize the outcome of the elections, calling them "fraudulent."

Tina Bokuchava, leader of the opposition United National Movement (UNM), which campaigned on a pro-European platform, said the results were "falsified" and the election "stolen."

"This is an attempt to steal Georgia's future," she said, declaring that the UNM did not accept the results.

Nika Gvaramia, leader of the Akhali party, called the way the vote was held "a constitutional coup" by the government. "Georgian Dream will not stay in power," he said.

In power since 2012, Georgian Dream initially pursued a liberal pro-Western policy agenda. But it has reversed course over the last two years.

Its campaign centered on a conspiracy theory about a "global war party" that controls Western institutions and is seeking to drag Georgia into the Russia-Ukraine war.