GEORGIA: ‘Ruling party wins polls’

Georgia’s ruling party has won the country’s parliamentary elections, the central election commission said Sunday, after the opposition decried the results as fraudulent.

Brussels had warned that Saturday’s vote, seen as a crucial test of democracy in the Caucasus country, would determine the EU candidate’s chances of joining the bloc.

Official results from more than 99 per cent of precincts showed the ruling Georgian Dream party winning 54.08 per cent of the votes, while a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances garnered 37.58 per cent, central election commission chair Giorgi Kalandarishvili told a news conference.

The results would give Georgian Dream 91 seats in the 150-member parliament – enough to govern but short of the 113-seat “constitutional majority” it had sought to institute a ban on all main opposition parties.