Georgia votes in high-stakes election affecting EU membership ambitions

An alliance of pro-Western opposition parties is challenging the ruling pro-Russian Georgian Dream.

Voting is under way in Georgia’s parliamentary elections that could shape the future of the country’s young democracy and its European ambitions.

Saturday’s vote will see an unprecedented alliance of pro-Western opposition parties challenging the governing Georgian Dream party, which has faced criticism for stifling democracy and drifting towards Russia.

The European Union has warned that the election will determine the country’s chances of joining the 27-nation bloc. Polls suggest most Georgians favour joining the EU, but accession talks were frozen after Georgian Dream passed a law cracking down on freedom of speech in June.

Polls opened at 8am (04:00 GMT) and are set to close 12 hours later, with some 3.5 million Georgians eligible to cast ballots.

Opinion polls indicate opposition parties could get enough votes to form a coalition to supplant Georgian Dream, controlled by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who set up the party and made his fortune in Russia.

“Tonight, there will be victory for all of Georgia,” said pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili, who is at loggerheads with the governing party, after casting her ballot.

Georgian Dream’s reclusive founder and former prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, said the election was “a very simple choice”.

“Either we elect a government that serves you, the Georgian people … or we elect an agent of a foreign country that will only fulfil the tasks of a foreign country,” he said as he cast his vote in the capital, Tbilisi, on Saturday.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said he was confident Georgian Dream would win a commanding majority in the 150-seat parliament and called for “maximum mobilisation” of supporters.

Central Election Commission spokeswoman, Natia Ioseliani, said turnout was 9 percent by 10am (06:00 GMT), two hours after voting began.

Georgians will elect 150 lawmakers from 18 parties. If no party wins the 76 seats required to form a government for a four-year term, the president will invite the largest party to form a coalition.

Demonstrators march during an opposition rally ahead of the election in Tbilisi, Georgia, on October 20, 2024 [Zurab Tsertsvadze/AP Photo]

‘Dragging us back’

Many voters believe the election may be the most crucial vote of their lifetimes, determining whether Georgia gets back on track to EU membership or embraces authoritarianism and leans towards Russia.

“Most Georgians have realised that the current government is dragging us back towards the Russian swamp and away from Europe, where Georgia truly belongs,” 48-year-old musician Giorgi Kipshidze told an AFP news agency reporter at a polling station in central Tbilisi.

In power since 2012, Georgian Dream initially pursued a liberal pro-Western policy agenda. But over the last two years, it has reversed course.

Its campaign has centred on a conspiracy theory about a “global war party” that controls Western institutions and is seeking to drag Georgia, still scarred by Russia’s 2008 invasion, into a war that only Georgian Dream could prevent.

“Right now, some people don’t understand the danger they might face if we’re defeated. But we will try our best to win and show the people the correct path,” Georgian Dream activist Sandro Dvalishvili told the Reuters news agency.

Georgia, which lost swaths of its territory to Russian-backed separatists in the 1990s and was defeated in a brief Russian invasion in 2008, was for decades one of the most pro-Western states to emerge from the Soviet Union. But since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Georgian Dream has moved the country decisively back towards Moscow’s orbit, accusing the West of trying to lure it into war.

Opposition parties and President Zourabichvili accuse Georgian Dream of buying votes and intimidating voters, which it denies.

Georgian Dream’s adoption of a controversial “foreign influence” law this year targeting civil society prompted weeks of mass street protests and was criticised as a Kremlin-style measure to silence dissent.

Russia on Friday blasted “unprecedented attempts at Western interference” in the vote, accusing it of “trying to twist Georgia’s hand” and “dictate terms”.

Supporters of the ruling Georgian Dream party attend a rally in the centre of Tbilisi, Georgia, on October 23, 2024 [Shakh Aivazov/AP Photo]

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Al Jazeera and news agencies