Georgian Elections: Georgian Dream Wins Amid Boycott And Protests

In Tbilisi, less than a third of the population went to the polling stations.

Georgia held municipal elections on October 4 amid a political crisis and mass protests. According to preliminary results released by the CEC, the ruling Georgian Dream party is leading with 80.7% of the votes nationwide, the independent Georgian publication Civil Georgia reported.

Meanwhile, opposition parties collectively garnered 19.3%. It is noted that only two major opposition forces - "Lelo" and "For Georgia" - participated in the elections. The rest, including those whose leaders are currently in prison, boycotted the elections.

Voter turnout, according to the CEC, amounted to 40.93% nationwide. The fewest people voted in Tbilisi, with less than a third of the population - 31.08% - going to the polls there.

Police are also reported to have arrested five people, including opposition figures and opera singer Paata Burchuladze, after a rally in Tbilisi they organized on election day, saying it should lead to the "peaceful overthrow" of the ruling Georgian Dream party. The rally turned into riots. They face up to nine years in prison.

The Interior Ministry said they were detained on charges of calling for the violent overthrow of state power and attempting to change the constitutional order through violence, as well as organizing, leading and participating in group violence.

The clashes near the presidential palace and in the adjacent Orbeliani Square continued into the night, while a larger group of protesters held a peaceful rally on Tbilisi's Rustaveli Avenue - about three hundred meters from the epicenter of the tension.

In the meantime, one of Georgia's opposition leaders, former president Salome Zurabishvili, sharply condemned the demonstrators who erected barricades on her social media page X. She expressed the opinion that "only the regime could have organized this parody of the seizure of the presidential palace in order to discredit the 310 days of peaceful protest of the Georgian people."

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