Georgia’s electoral authority has said preliminary results showed that the country’s governing party had won a parliamentary election - but the opposition rejected the figures and thousands of people took to the streets to protest.
With more than 99 percent of ballots counted, the Georgian Dream party had received 48.1 percent of Saturday’s vote, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said on Sunday.
The biggest opposition alliance, led by the United National Movement (UNM) party, got 27.1 percent. Several other opposition parties managed to clear the 1 percent threshold for membership in parliament.
The governing party – founded by Georgia’s richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili – declared victory soon after polls closed across the former Soviet republic and four exit polls put it in first place.
“Georgia has made me a worthy choice, and that Georgian Dream founded by me is a worthy dream. Georgian voters, who would not make the wrong choice today, expressed support for worthy people,” Ivanishvili told a crowd of cheering supporters in the capital, Tbilisi.Aljazeera.
