Georgia’s ruling pro-Russia party retains power in blow to EU aspirations

Georgia’s ruling party has retained power in a contested parliamentary election in a blow to the country’s long-held aspiration for EU membership, amid accusations of intimidation and coercion of voters.

Georgia’s pro-western opposition refused to concede defeat, accusing the ruling party of a “constitutional coup” and promising to announce protests, setting the stage for a potential political crisis that could further polarise the Caucasus country.

The commission said the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party had won 54% of the vote, with more than 99% of precincts counted.

The result for GD would thwart the opposition’s hopes for a pro-western coalition of four blocs and in effect stall the country’s aspirations for EU integration.

Related: Who is Bidzina Ivanishvili, the shadowy billionaire behind Georgia’s pivot to Russia?

Voters in the country of almost 4 million people headed to the polls on Saturday in a watershed election to decide whether the increasingly authoritarian GD party, which has been in power since 2012 and steered the country into a conservative course away from the west and closer to Russia, should get another four-year term.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the shadowy billionaire founder of GD , claimed victory shortly after polls closed, in what has been called the most consequential election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“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,” said Ivanishvili, widely considered to be the country’s most powerful figure.

At a press conference late on Saturday, leaders of the opposition coalition called the results of the elections a “constitutional coup”.

“The victory was stolen from the Georgian people … We do not accept results of these falsified elections,” said Tinatin Bokuchava, the leader of the biggest opposition party, United National Movement (UNM).

An international observer mission announced on Sunday that the conduct of the election was evidence of “democratic backsliding” in the country.

A preliminary report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said it “noted reports of intimidation, coercion and pressure on voters, particularly on public sector employees and other groups, raising concerns about the ability of some voters to cast their vote without fear of retribution”.

However, it stopped short of saying the elections had been stolen or falsified – a claim the opposition reiterated on Sunday.

The opposition, which is expected to announce its next move late on Sunday, has accused GD of relying on its “administrative resources” during the elections – an umbrella term that includes pressing state employees to vote and offering cash handouts to mostly rural voters.

A group of 2,000 election observers called My Vote said it did not believe the preliminary results “reflect the will of Georgian citizens” given the scale of voter fraud and violence.

On Saturday morning, several videos circulated online appearing to show ballot stuffing and voter intimidation at various polling stations across Georgia.

“Bidzina Ivanishvili’s thugs are desperate to cling on to power and will resort to anything to subvert the election process,” Bokuchava, the UNM leader, said as voting was under way.

Electoral commission data showed GD winning by huge margins of up to 90% in some rural areas, though it underperformed in bigger cities.

For the past three decades Georgia has maintained strong pro-western aspirations, with polls showing up to 80% of its people favour joining the EU. In recent years, however, the government has increasingly shifted away from the west in favour of Russia , showing reluctance to condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

The GD has also been accused by critics of plans to move the country in an authoritarian direction after Ivanishvili vowed to ban all the leading opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers if his party was re-elected.

Many expected that GD would become the biggest party but might fall short of a majority and struggle to form a government, with all other blocs refusing to collaborate with it.

The GD was facing an unprecedented union of four pro-western opposition forces that had vowed to form a coalition government to oust it from power and put Georgia back on track to join the EU.

The biggest opposition force is the centre-right UNM, a party founded by Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president who is in prison on charges of abuse of power that his allies say are politically motivated.

The GD ran its campaign on accusations that the pro-western opposition was trying to pull Georgia into a Ukraine-style conflict. In 2008, Georgia fought a war with Russia that lasted five days and left deep scars, and the invasion of Ukraine has left some in the country wary of the possible consequences of provoking Russia by moving closer to the west.

On Saturday night, voters in Tbilisi seemed divided over the country’s future course. “We have lost our country today,” said Ana Machaidze, a 25-year-old student. “I don’t know what to do next. I hope we can take to the streets, but if we lose, maybe I will live abroad.”

Support for the pro-western opposition groups generally came from urban and younger voters, who envision their political future with the EU.

Irakli Shengelia, 56, a restaurant worker, said he was glad GD would remain in power because the party guaranteed “peace and stability” with Russia and shared his conservative values.

Related: Georgian president refuses to sign anti-LGBTQ+ rights bill into law

The government, aligned with the deeply conservative and influential Orthodox church, has sought to galvanise anti-liberal sentiments by campaigning on “family values” and criticising what it portrays as western excesses.

In the summer, the parliament passed legislation imposing sweeping restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights , a move that critics say mirrors laws enacted in neighbouring Russia, where authorities have implemented a series of repressive measures against sexual minorities.

The EU granted Georgia candidate membership status last year but has put its application on hold in response to a controversial “foreign agents” bill passed in May, requiring media and NGOs receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence”.

The bill, which triggered weeks of mass protests in the spring, has been labelled a “Russian law” by critics, who liken it to legislation introduced by the Kremlin a decade earlier to silence political dissent in the media and elsewhere.