Worthy Christian News > World News > Election Riots Rock Ex-Soviet Nation Georgia Over Alleged Fraud

Election Riots Rock Ex-Soviet Nation Georgia Over Alleged Fraud

By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – Anger over an election moved far beyond U.S. borders Sunday with police in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, firing tear gas and water cannon at crowds protesting the results of last week’s parliamentary vote.

Thousands of people rallied outside the Central Election Commission in Tbilisi, the capital, to demand a new election saying the governing party rigged the poll.

The ruling Georgian Dream party founded and led by billionaire ex-prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili denied accusations of electoral fraud.

International election observers claimed “fundamental freedoms were respected” but criticized aspects of the process.

But all of Georgia’s opposition parties have refused to enter the new parliament. That has sparked fears of another crisis in the Caucasus nation where elections are often followed by accusations of fraud and mass demonstrations.

Georgian Dream, which was in power since 2012, secured over 48 percent of ballots cast in the October 31 vote, election officials said.

The victory gives the party the right to form the country’s next government.
But the thousands of protesters who marched in Tbilisi rejected the result and called for the resignation of both the police chief and the election commission.

Former-President Mikhail Saakashvili, who founded the largest opposition party United National Movement (UNM), said his bloc reached a “triumph” and vowed to form a government.

It would mean a political comeback for Saakashvili, who took power in the 2003 peaceful Rose Revolution and instituted reforms to boost democratic institutions and battle corruption.

However, he also fought a brief war with Russia in 2008 over the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

He later fled citing political persecution and spent years in political exile.

Demonstrators deemed to support his views Sunday saying the Georgian Dream tried to carry out a coup. Their protest began Sunday afternoon, near the main thoroughfare of the capital Tbilisi.

It turned into a sea of Georgia’s red-and-white five-cross flags as some 45,000 protesters gathered outside parliament, many wearing masks.

Later in the evening, protesters marched several kilometers (miles) across the city towards the central election commission premises.

The rallies rocking Tbilisi came a day before a new overnight curfew comes into effect in the country’s major cities amid a rise in coronavirus cases.

Georgia, which has a population of just 3.7 million people and was once part of the Soviet Union, recorded more than 57,000 coronavirus cases. Some 475 people died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, authorities say.

Eight opposition parties have already said they would boycott parliament over the results of the vote, ahead of what promises to be a turbulent political season.