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What Are Opposition Plans on Alleged Vote Fraud

All four of Georgia’s main opposition forces – Unity/UNM, Coalition for Change, Strong Georgia, and For Georgia- say they reject the official results of the disputed October 26 parliamentary vote, alleging a complex voting fraud scheme and vowing to deny legitimacy to the new parliament.

Some political forces who passed the threshold directly promised not to take seats in Parliament and to withdraw their party lists, while others indirectly indicated the same. The parties also pledged to continue their struggle to prove the fraud and demand new elections conducted by an “international electoral administration.”

According to official results released by the Central Election Commission, the ruling Georgian Dream party won with nearly 54 percent of the vote, while the combined share of four opposition parties that passed the 5 percent threshold was 37.8 percent. The results, which show significant gains for the ruling party after the 2020 elections, came as a shock to the opposition and pundits.

Parliamentary Elections 2024
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“We refuse parliamentary mandates, privileges, and funding. We completely withdraw our party list,” said the Coalition for Change, the alliance that won the most votes among opposition forces, according to official results. Leaders of the Unity to Save Georgia coalition, led by the United National Movement, made a similar pledge. The Strong Georgia coalition, led by Lelo for Georgia, said it wouldn’t enter parliament, while Giorgi Gakharia, the ex-prime minister who heads the For Georgia party, assured that his party “won’t give legitimacy to the [Georgian] Dream’s illegitimate parliament.”

Unlike other opposition figures, Gakharia’s party leaders didn’t take the stage during the massive October 28 rally in front of the parliament building called by President Salome Zurabishvili to protect opposition votes, but the former prime minister and his party colleagues were present at the rally. In his media remarks, Gakharia hinted that his decision not to join the other three opposition forces was due to his unwillingness to share the stage with the United Nations Movement.

President’s Role

A key figure in leading the opposition effort against recognition of the 2024 elections is President Salome Zurabishvili, who has called the vote a “Russian special operation.” After the official results were released, Zurabishvili united the main opposition parties and spent hours giving interviews to international media or on the phone with Western leaders in an apparent effort to convince the West that the elections were rigged.

The Western response has ranged from cautious to harsh and critical, but mostly short of legitimizing or delegitimizing the elections. International observer missions speak of violations and have yet to assess the overall fairness of the vote. And opposition parties and local observer missions say they are working to gather evidence to prove elections were stolen.

In addition to general reports of vote-buying and voter intimidation before and on election day, there are mounting allegations that the ruling party may have resorted to a complex rigging scheme, including through the collection of voters’ personal information and the misuse of the verification machines used in the largely electronic vote.

The Strong Georgia coalition has called on authorities to make public the list of those who are registered as having voted in certain precincts, while other opposition forces say the opposition wasn’t given enough access to audit the machines for electronic voting and are demanding an impartial investigation. (The Central Election Commission responded to Strong Georgia’s request by saying that the creation of such a database of voters who were at the polls would violate the rules on the protection of personal data.)

The official results give Georgian Dream 89 parliamentary seats, more than enough for a simple ruling majority but far short of the 113 seats needed for a constitutional majority.

According to the Georgian Constitution, the first session of the new Parliament is to be convened “not later than the 10th day after the official announcement of the results of the parliamentary elections.” Only after the new Parliament assumes full power can parties officially refuse their mandates and withdraw the rest of the party lists.

Georgian Dream leaders have dismissed the allegations of fraud as “disinformation”, arguing that the opposition and civil society don’t want to “accept the will of the people.”

“None of the [opposition] parties has any value for the Georgian parliament,” Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said on October 27. “If they want, they can enter [the parliament], if they don’t, they may not.”

Follow our Election Live Blog for more updates.

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