TBILISI: Georgians protested on Saturday as the poll commission rubber-stamped the ruling party's victory in a controversial parliamentary vote marked by claims of Russian meddling and Western calls to investigate fraud allegations. The Caucasus nation's pro-Western opposition has denounced the October 26 vote as "fraudulent", while the European Union and the United States have called for a probe into alleged electoral "irregularities".
The Georgian Dream party won 53.93 per cent of the votes against 37.79 per cent garnered by a union of four opposition alliances, the national election commission said.
Critics have blamed the increasingly conservative party for derailing Georgia from its European path and bringing Tbilisi back into Moscow's orbit.
Saturday's final results by the electoral commission give Georgian Dream 89 seats in the 150-member parliament, which the opposition deems "illegitimate" and has refused to enter. The interior ministry said it has initiated a criminal probe against the commission's opposition member who splashed black paint on the face of its chair, Giorgi Kalandarishvili, briefly disrupting the commission's session before the results were announced. - AFP
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