U.S. President Biden Expresses Alarm Over Georgia’s Disputed Election and “Russian-Style Laws”

United States President Joe Biden has urged the Georgian government to address global apprehension regarding the extent of irregularities in Saturday’s election and to revoke recently enacted Russian-esque legislation. The ruling Georgian Dream party in the South Caucasus nation, which shares a border with Russia, asserted its claim to a fourth consecutive term in office following an announcement by electoral officials that it had secured nearly 54% of the ballots. “I have been deeply alarmed by the country’s recent democratic backsliding,” Biden stated, reflecting anxieties also voiced by the European Union, which has suspended Georgia’s application for membership and characterized recent events as “deeply worrying”. Salome Zourabichvili, Georgia’s pro-Western president, has declined to acknowledge the election results. She has referred to a “Russian special operation” aimed at influencing the outcome and has supported four opposition factions, who contend that the election was “stolen” by a progressively authoritarian party, which they claim is steering Georgia back towards Russia’s sphere of influence under its billionaire founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Both the United States and the European Union have requested an inquiry into numerous instances of intimidation, violence, and ballot-stuffing, alongside alleged blatant breaches of the recently implemented electronic voting procedure. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, affirmed that Georgians possess “a right to see that electoral irregularities are investigated swiftly, transparently and independently”. Nevertheless, the declaration from the U.S. president is expected to have the most significant impact on the Georgian Dream leadership, primarily because it is highly probable to resonate with Georgia’s 3.7 million inhabitants. Irakli Kobakhidze, the prime minister representing Georgian Dream, has attempted to dismiss criticism concerning the election. He informed the BBC that disturbances occurred in merely a few polling stations, whereas in all other locations, “the environment was completely peaceful”. On Tuesday, he appeared alongside Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who journeyed to Tbilisi to commend the election as “free and democratic”. Orban refrained from addressing the numerous claims of electoral irregularities, and his presence displeased many of the EU’s 27 member nations. Thirteen foreign ministers asserted that he did not represent the EU, while Brussels countered Orban, clarifying that observers had not deemed the elections free and fair. It stated that the situation in Georgia was “very worrying”. Over recent months, Georgian Dream has enacted a “foreign agents” law, reminiscent of Russian legislation, which targets media outlets and non-governmental organizations that accept foreign financing, in addition to a law restricting LGBT rights. Orban, who had extended congratulations to the Georgian Dream government prior to the announcement of the results on Saturday night, also criticized his EU counterparts. “European politics has a manual. If liberals win, they say it’s democratic, but if conservatives win, there’s no democracy,” he informed journalists following discussions with Kobakhidze. “Here the conservatives won, so these are the disputes – you shouldn’t take them too seriously.” Viktor Orban reached Tbilisi on Monday evening, not far from a substantial protest involving tens of thousands of Georgians demonstrating against the outcome. Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s Foreign Minister, also present in Tbilisi, expressed that it was shameful that the EU had failed to acknowledge the outcome of the Georgian election. Exit polls conducted by Western organizations for opposition television channels indicated that a coalition of four opposition parties had secured victory, prior to the Central Election Commission announcing Georgian Dream as the winner with a parliamentary majority. The Georgian monitoring organization “My Vote” has assembled a comprehensive inventory of the categories of infringements that its 1,500 observers recorded on Saturday and during the period leading up to the election. My Vote reported that before the election, public sector teachers, cleaners, and bus drivers were either requested to submit their identification documents or had them seized, concurrently, families of susceptible individuals were presented with monetary assistance in exchange for their ballot. On the election day itself, My Vote indicates that various distinct methods were employed: President Zourabichvili had previously informed the BBC that what is known as carousel voting occurred, “when one person can vote 10, 15, 17 times with the same ID”. My Vote has requested the invalidation of results from 196 polling stations, asserting that these stations were responsible for an additional 300,000 ballots. Georgia’s prime minister has refuted claims of extensive irregularities, stating to the BBC that the elections were broadly “in line with legal principles”. He has also rejected assertions that his administration is pro-Russian and “pro-Putinist”. Georgia’s embattled election commission has charged its detractors with conducting a “manipulative campaign” of misinformation and announced its intention to re-tally votes in five randomly chosen polling stations within each of Georgia’s 84 electoral districts. The commission states that the U.S. company whose system it utilized affirmed that “duplicating a voter on the voter list is impossible, as each voter is registered only once”. “It is impossible to vote multiple times with a single ID, undergo double verification, or have a single voter registered across multiple precincts,” the commission further stated, adding that attempts to undermine the system amounted to nothing more than a denial of reality. The Georgian president informed Swiss radio that the commission was “completely dominated by the party of power, and non-government organisations… have no influence over it”. “This state is captured,” remarked Eka Gigauri from Transparency International, an organization that participated in the My Vote monitoring initiative. “We know anything might happen… and we know no-one will investigate it or react.” Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC bears no responsibility for the material found on external websites. 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