With over 99.97% of precincts counted, official results published by the Central Election Commission show the ruling Georgian Dream party winning parliamentary elections with 53.92% of the vote, while the combined share of four opposition coalitions that passed the election threshold totals 37.78%.
The October 26 vote followed months of Georgian Dream’s anti-democratic and anti-Western drift and the official results come as a shock to many pro-opposition voters who expected GD to have lost support. Georgian Dream campaigned by fearmongering about “war”, instrumentalizing homophobia, and threatening with the return of United National Movement rule.
The polling in about 90% of precincts was conducted electronically, meaning that precincts featured electronic technologies to verify the voters and count votes.
Most of the opposition refuses to accept the results and vows to protect the vote, while local observers point to a “large-scale”, complex rigging scheme and international observers talk about flaws before and during the polling day. Violations noted by local and international observers include a pre-election climate of fear and intimidation of civil society, including the passage of the Foreign Agents Law, reports of vote-buying, violations of voter privacy, physical altercations, and controversial changes to election administration rules prior to the vote.
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The voter turnout by 8 p.m. was around 59%, some three percent higher than in previous elections, but somewhat lower than the 2012 landmark race that brought Georgian Dream to power. While the opposition expected a higher turnout to be in its favor, the official results showed a drastically different picture.
Trends in CEC Official Data
According to official data, Georgian Dream won comfortably in most regions of Georgia but lost or was relatively close to losing in major cities.
GD had its strongest lead in the southern regions of Samtkhe-Javakheti (over 87% in Ninotsminda and Akhalkalaki districts) and Kvemo Kartli (between 67% and 82% in most districts). These include remote and ethnic minority-settled constituencies that have been traditional strongholds of Georgia’s ruling parties. However, the GD lost in Rustavi, the central city of Kvemo Kartli, about 20 km from Tbilisi, where it received 41.4% of votes.
CEC results show that the ruling party also secured confident victories in the mountainous regions of Svaneti (over 70% support) and Racha-Lechkhumi (over 60%), as well as Guria and Adjara regions.
Georgian Dream lost the Georgian capital to the opposition, receiving about 42% of the vote against the combined 46% of four opposition alliances plus 5.3% of the libertarian Girchi.
CEC data show close races in other large cities, such as Kutaisi (Imereti), Poti (Samegrelo), and Batumi (Adjara), where Georgian Dream finished below 50% but received more votes than the four pro-Western opposition coalitions. GD finished with 48% in opposition-run Tsalenjikha (Samegrelo), which is also more than the share of four opposition alliances combined.
The ruling party won the rest of Samegrelo’s districts, three years after it had conceded some of the municipal councils there to the opposition in the 2021 local elections. However, the Georgian Dream lost dramatically to the opposition in the overseas districts, where the ruling party received only 15% of the emigrant vote.
2020 vs 2024 Vote
According to official data, Georgian Dream secured 1,118,836 real votes, about 191,000 more than in the previous, 2020 parliamentary elections. The Unity – to Save Georgia alliance, led by the United National Movement, the former ruling party, on the other hand, received 210,895 votes (10.16%), less than half as many as in 2020, when UNM alone received 523,127 votes. This is partly explainable as the party ceded some of its leadership and voters to a new alliance, the Coalition for Change, which received 229,006 votes (11.04%). However, the combined total of the UNM-led alliance and the Coalition for Change is still 83,226 votes less than UNM’s 2020 result.
The Strong Georgia alliance, led by Lelo for Georgia, came out stronger than Lelo’s 2020 results, garnering 182,891 votes (8.81%) presumably due to the inclusion of several smaller forces in the coalition. It is the first time that the For Georgia party, led by former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, has participated in a parliamentary race. The party received 161,250 votes (7.77%).
The official results show the Georgian Dream’s share slightly lower compared to the Gorbi exit polls commissioned by pro-government Imedi TV, while the official results are in dramatic contrast to the exit polls conducted by HarrisX (for pro-opposition Mtavari Arkhi) Edison Research (for opposition-leaning Formula-TV), with the latter being known traditionally as most accurate in election-day polling. Both HarrisX and Edison Research had projected the opposition as winners.
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