By Felix Light and Lucy Papachristou
TBILISI (Reuters) -Georgia's most powerful man won a parliamentary election on Saturday, according to early official results, a victory which opposition politicians refused to recognise, alleging "falsification".
The ruling Georgian Dream party's billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, the opposition, and foreign diplomats had cast the election as a watershed moment that would decide if Georgia moves closer to the West or leans back towards Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
If confirmed, Georgian Dream's victory would prove a blow to those Georgians who hope for closer integration with Europe in a vote billed as a choice between the West and Russia.
Early official results with 70% of precincts counted, representing the majority of votes cast, showed the ruling party had won 53% of the vote, the electoral commission said. The results do not include most ballots cast by Georgians living overseas.
Opposition parties contested the election results at a news briefing held in the early hours of Sunday and said they would not accept them.
"This is a constitutional coup," said Nika Gvaramia, leader of the Coalition for Change opposition party, according to the Interpress news agency.
"The Georgian people have cast a vote for the European future of this country, and therefore we will not accept these falsified results published by the CEC (Central Election Commission)," said Tina Bokuchava, leader of the opposition United National Movement.
"We Vote", a Georgian coalition of electoral observers, said it believed the results "do not reflect the will of the citizens of Georgia", citing multiple reports of voter intimidation and vote buying.
"We will continue to demand the annulment of the results," it said.
Rival exit polls gave sharply different projections for the election: The Georgian Dream-supporting Imedi TV channel showed the ruling party winning 56%. Exit polls by the pro-opposition channels showed major gains for the opposition parties.
Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream's reclusive billionaire founder and onetime prime minister, claimed victory and praised the Georgian people.
"It is a rare case in the world that the same party achieves such success in such a difficult situation - this is a good indicator of the talent of the Georgian people," Ivanishvili told cheering supporters.
Though Georgian Dream lost out to the combined opposition in parts of the capital, Tbilisi, it won margins of up to 90% in some rural areas.
The Georgian opposition initially also celebrated victory and some monitors reported election violations. But a parallel count operated by one of the opposition parties showed Georgian Dream in a strong position to win a majority.
Party representatives told Reuters they would be analysing the results in the coming hours, but stopped short for the moment of alleging any falsifications.
Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, came to power in 2012 advocating pro-Western views, alongside a pragmatic policy towards Russia.
He has since soured on the West, accusing a "Global War Party" of seeking to drag Georgia into war with Russia, even as he insists Georgia is on course to join the EU.
If victory for Ivanishvili's party is confirmed, it would be a blow to the EU's hopes of bringing more former Soviet republics into its orbit. Moldova on Oct. 20 voted by a very slim majority to support EU accession.
Russia had repeatedly signalled it wanted Georgian Dream to win, while accusing Western countries of undue interference in Georgian politics.
"The Georgians won. Well done!" said Margarita Simonyan, the editor of Russian state media outlet RT, which the United States has accused of trying to influence its own presidential election. There was no immediate comment from the EU.
CRUCIAL VOTE
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili – a one-time ally of the ruling party turned fierce critic whose powers are mostly ceremonial - and independent domestic election monitors had alleged Georgian Dream was engaged in widespread vote-buying and other forms of electoral abuse in the lead-up to the vote.
The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), an independent Georgian electoral monitoring group founded in 1995, said it had documented numerous violations and instances of violence outside multiple polling stations.
Video circulated on social media showing a man stuffing multiple ballots into a voting box in Marneuli, a city of some 25,000 south of Tbilisi. The votes were later declared invalid, a Central Election Commission spokesperson said, according to the Interpress news agency.
Giorgi Kalandarishvili, the chairman of the electoral commission, said the vote was peaceful and free, and said the election had taken place in accordance with international standards.
CHANGE
Some opposition-minded Georgians told Reuters they were disappointed by the results.
Voter Irakli Gotsiridze said: "I'm very disappointed that these are the results. I don't want to believe it."
Georgia was once one of the most pro-Western states to emerge from the chaotic aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. The road leading from Tbilisi's airport is named after former U.S. President George W. Bush.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Tbilisi’s relations with the West have taken a sharp downward turn. Unlike many Western allies, Georgia declined to impose sanctions on Moscow, while Georgian Dream’s rhetoric has become increasingly pro-Russian.
Georgian Dream has drawn the ire of its Western allies for what they cast as its increasingly authoritarian bent. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban congratulated Georgian Dream for an "overwhelming victory".
Georgian Dream had campaigned hard on keeping Georgia out of the war in Ukraine, with campaign billboards contrasting pristine Georgian cities with devastated Ukrainian ones.
Sandro Dvalishvili, a 23-year-old Georgian Dream activist, told Reuters last week that Georgia would face "danger" if his party of choice was defeated at the polls.
"If it turns out that we don’t win, for me that'll be very bad. Because I don’t see another force that will bring peace and stability to our country", he said.