Georgia ruling party wins polls: election commission

Georgia's ruling party wins parliamentary elections despite opposition claims of fraud, EU-candidate's future in question.

Georgia's ruling party has won the country's parliamentary elections, the central election commission said Sunday (October 27, 2024), after the opposition decried the results as fraudulent.

Brussels had warned that Saturday'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% of precincts showed the ruling Georgian Dream party winning 54.08% of the votes, while a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances garnered 37.58%, 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 recognise the outcome of the elections, calling them "fraudulent".