Georgia’s governing Georgian Dream party has won the country’s parliamentary election, says the electoral commission, amid protests from pro-Western opposition that denounced the vote as a “constitutional coup”.
With more than 99 percent of the precincts counted on Sunday, the governing party received more than 54 percent of the ballot, central election commission chair Giorgi Kalandarishvili told a news conference.
The four opposition parties received more than 37 percent of the vote, with the Coalition for Change receiving the largest slice at 10.822 percent, according to the Georgia Today news website.
Based on preliminary estimates, the Georgian Dream victory ensures it 89 seats in the 150-member parliament – enough to govern but short of the absolute majority it wants to make sweeping constitutional changes.
The results are seen as a blow to pro-Western Georgians, who had cast the election as a choice between a governing party that has deepened ties with Russia, and an opposition that had hoped to fast-track integration with the European Union.
Credit: aljazeera.com
