State prosecutors in Georgia had on Wednesday, said they had set up an investigation into opposition claims of possible falsification at a weekend parliamentary election in which the ruling Georgian Dream was announced the winner.
Official results had announced that Georgian Dream, (a party with its deepened ties with Russia) had clinched 54% of the vote and had a clear majority in parliament after Saturday’s vote. However, opposition politicians have said they will shun the chamber as a form of protest at a result they claimed was illegitimate.
The Prosecutor’s Office had revealed in a statement that it had summoned Georgian President, Salome Zourabichvili, a government critic who had continuously said the vote count was forged but had not provided evidence of that to testify on Thursday.
Zourabichvili and other opposition figures had cast the vote as a significant moment in Georgian history, where the country was deciding between European Union integration with the opposition, or a continuous drift towards Russia under Georgian Dream.
Georgia has no diplomatic relations with Russia and the Georgian Dream, has said it does want the South Caucasus country to one day join the EU, as it did not want the nation to be dragged into another conflict with Moscow which won a short war against it in 2008.
The Prosecutor’s Office also announced that an investigation was being opened at the request of Georgia’s electoral commission, which has since reiterated that the vote was free and fair.
On Tuesday, Georgian media reported that the electoral commission had called for an inquiry into what it called “baseless criticism” of the election.
Election observers, including the 57-nation Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have all reported that the vote was marked by incidents of voter intimidation, bribery and ballot-stuffing that could have impacted the result, but they has curiously stopped short of calling the whole affair rigged.
The Kremlin had however, refuted the interference allegations and accused the West of trying to excessively influence the outcome of the vote.
