The President of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili, stated that she will remain in office until a „legal parliament” elects a new president. The pro-Western leader and the opposition do not recognize the results of the parliamentary elections held in October.
„President Salome Zurabishvili announced that an illegitimate parliament would not be able to elect a new president, and therefore the inauguration will not take place. Her mandate will continue until a new president is elected by a newly constituted parliament,” reported Echo of the Caucasus, a branch of Radio Liberty.
International observers, including those from the OSCE, acknowledged that violations such as vote tampering, voter intimidation, and bribery could have influenced the elections but did not explicitly state that they were rigged.
President Zurabishvili explained to AFP that electronic voting was used to commit fraud in the parliamentary elections. She claimed that identical ID numbers were linked to up to a dozen or even 20 votes cast in different regions of Georgia.
The ruling party in Georgia, Georgian Dream, which officially won the parliamentary elections, announced on Wednesday that its candidate for president is politician and former football player Mikheil Kavelashvili.
Four opposition parties that passed the electoral threshold, along with the president, refuse to recognize the election results due to numerous irregularities. They are demanding new elections to be organized under international administration. Zurabishvili declared that „the voters were victims of a Russian special operation.”
In early November, two American research centers, commissioned by the Georgian opposition, conducted exit polls after the parliamentary elections, challenging the official results announced by the Central Election Commission.
