Georgian Ruling Party Declares Election Win, Pro-Western Opposition Claims Rigged Election

Parliamentary elections in the Caucasian country Georgia on Saturday yielded a disputed result, with both the ruling party Georgian Dream, and the pro-Western opposition alliance claiming victory. 

The Details: Georgian Dream declared victory with 54% of the vote. Two exit polls commissioned by pro-opposition bodies showed it receiving enough votes to clinch a parliamentary majority, but a third commissioned by a pro-government TV network showed a decisive victory for Georgian Dream. The European Union has asked Georgia to "swiftly, transparently and independently" investigate reported voting irregularities.

For Context: Georgian Dream, which favors a more normalized relationship with Russia than the opposition, first came to power in 2012 when it defeated the pro-Western United National Movement party led by the currently-imprisoned Mikheil Saakashvili in parliamentary elections with nearly 55% of the vote. Georgia has made many headlines in recent years for a newly enacted “foreign agents” law that Western officials and media outlets have scrutinized as being “pro-Kremlin.” AllSides has previously chronicled media coverage of the law and its potential geopolitical consequences.

How The Media Covered It: Many Western media outlets highlighted the claims of fraud or illegitimacy surrounding the vote from the country’s opposition leaders and Western observers. Kremlin-funded RT (Lean Right bias) included a quote from Georgian Dream party chairman Mamuka Mdinaradze that described the country’s independent President Salome Zourabichvili as “an agent, a leader of the radical opposition.”