The Georgian elections held in October 2024 were pivotal for the future of the country as citizens were called to choose between a closer alliace with Russia or a full membership in Europe. The pro-Russian party, Georgian Dream, won with 56% of the votes.
On the day of the elections Georgian people were called to express they’re preference on the next ruling party or alliace. The Georgian President of the Republic Salome Zourabichvili and billionaire founder of pro-Russia Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, voted and the polling stations, releasing a press statement afterwards.
The international observers worked for months to inspect the entire process of the elections, from the organisation of them to the atmosphere in the polling stations all around the country. During the press conference the International Observers, that were all European Observers, since Georgia is candidated to become member of the European Union, found several irregularities. The observers (OSCE, NATO, PACE, ODIHR, and the European Parliament delegation) stated that, althought the votes are valid, the context of the election such as the electoral campaign, the impartiality of the institutions, the freedom of expression and the right secret vote were not always respected, reasing several concerns about the general democratic process of these elections.
The President of the Republic of Georgia called a protest to show that the opposition do not accept the results. The number of people was overwhelmingly and impressingly high, thounsands gathered in front of the Parliament.
Many young people kept protesting the following day, with a rally that went from the State University to the Parliament. A couple of Russian infiltrators were identified during the protest and were chased away by the protesters.
