TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party leads in a parliamentary election in the former Soviet republic on Saturday, preliminary results showed, but the opposition rejected the results and said it planned to protest.
With almost 44% of the votes in, data from the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) gave the ruling Georgian Dream party 50.58% of the vote and the largest opposition party United National Movement (UNM) 24.92%.
According to preliminary results, several other opposition parties managed to clear the 1% threshold for membership in parliament.
The opposition said preliminary results did not correspond with reality.
“We won’t accept this result and call on people to come to Rustaveli avenue (in the capital Tbilisi) at 4 p.m.” (0200 GMT) on Sunday, Nika Melia, one of the UNM leaders, told reporters after consultations with other opposition leaders.
International observers planned to hold a news conference on an hour before the planned protest.
Police units were placed in the area around the election commission’s building.
The ruling party declared victory soon after polls closed across the South Caucasus country after four exit polls put it in first place in a tight race.
It was not clear whether the governing party - founded by Georgia’s richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili - would secure the votes needed to form a single-party government.
The opposition claimed it received enough votes in total to form a coalition.
More than 30 opposition parties, led by the UNM, the largest and strongest opposition force, announced on Friday that they would not go into coalition with the ruling party after the election.
The country’s economy has been hit hard by the spread of the coronavirus and is forecast by the government to contract by 4% in 2020.
The government’s popularity has waned, and opponents accuse it of mishandling the economy, selective justice, a weak foreign policy and stamping on dissent with the violent dispersal of protests.
Critics say Ivanishvili, who does not hold a government post, runs the country of 3.7 million people from behind the scenes, an accusation denied by Georgian Dream, which has governed for two consecutive terms.
A fifth of Georgian territory is controlled by pro-Russian separatists following a short war with Russia in 2008.
Both the government and the opposition would like to see Georgia join the European Union and NATO, but such moves would be strongly resisted by Moscow. Georgian Dream also favours closer ties with Russia.
Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and William Mallard
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Ruling party in ex-Soviet Georgia leads in parliament vote, opposition protests - Reuters
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