The news that came out of Georgia late on Saturday was as saddening as it was predictable. For weeks, the country’s ruling party, the Russia-aligned Georgian Dream (GD), were advertising that they saw no alternative to staying in power following the rigged parliamentary election – promising a ban on opposition parties and even ‘Nuremberg trials’.
If there is any surprise at all, it is the sheer brazenness with which GD tilted the results in its favour. There were widespread violations of vote secrecy, including tracking voters outside polling stations, verbal threats and violence. There is evidence of vote buying, duplicitous use of ID cards, marking of ballots (making votes for parties other than GD invalid), and intimidation of civil servants, teachers, cleaners – and essentially anybody on government payroll. Results coming from remote, poor areas with large minority populations seem akin to something out of North Korea: GD received 89 per cent of votes in Akhalkalaki, 80 percent in Marneuli, and 84 in Sachkhere, suggesting blatant manipulation.
None of the four opposition party blocs – which would command a comfortable parliamentary majority according to much of the polling pre-election as well as independent exit polls on Saturday – have accepted the results of the election as legitimate.
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