GEORGIAN PRESIDENT SAYS I DO NOT RECOGNIZE ELECTION RESULTS – Calls on people to take to the streets to protest the results
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili called on Sunday, October 27th for people to take to the streets to protest the results of Saturday’s disputed parliamentary election, which the electoral commission said the ruling party had won.
The Georgian Dream party clinched nearly 54% of the vote, the commission said, as opposition parties contested the result and vote monitors reported significant violations.
Zourabichvili, a former Georgian Dream ally turned fierce critic of the ruling party, said she did not recognize the results.”It was a total fraud, a total taking away of your votes,” Zourabichvili told reporters, flanked by Georgian opposition party leaders.
Zourabichvili called on Georgians to protest in the centre of the capital, Tbilisi, on Monday evening “to announce to the world that we do not recognize these elections.”
Georgian Dream, now headed for a fourth term in office, will take 89 seats in parliament, one less than it secured in 2020, the commission said, with four pro-Western opposition parties receiving 61 seats in total.
A series of violations were reported on Sunday by three separate monitoring missions, including the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The groups said the violations could have affected the result but stopped short of calling the outcome fraudulent.
