Parliamentary Elections, 26 October 2024

Georgia held parliamentary elections on 26 October 2024, electing 150 candidates to the unicameral parliament by list proportional representation (International IDEA n.d.). The responsible authority for organizing elections is the Central Electoral Commission an independent body (CEC n.d.).

In February 2024, the CEC’s composition changed after amendments to the electoral code. The post of Deputy Chairman, earlier reserved for the opposition, was abolished by the Georgian Dream Party – overriding a veto by Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili (Civil Georgia 2024a). The CEC is composed of eight non-partisan members and nine members from political parties. Before amendments in 2024, decisions needed a 12-member majority, but now only require nine. This means that decisions do not need support from opposition members to make a decision – a development which has been criticized by civil society (Kincha 2024).

The parliament also passed a “Foreign Influence” bill in May 2024, demanding that all organizations receiving 20 per cent or more of their funding from abroad need to register as foreign agents – with fines for NGOs that do not register (Berlinger and Edwards 2024) in the legislation has prompted sanctions from the US and a halt the Georgia’s EU accession process (Shoshiashvili 2024).

Anti-Western conspiracy theories about a “Global War Party” (purportedly seeking to draw Georgia into conflict with Russia) began to circulate a year prior to the elections – and were used continuously by Georgian Dream incumbents in the campaign (FactCheck Georgia/EDMO 2024). Georgian Dream spread manipulated videos of the opposition calling for war, among other misrepresentations. Armenian and Azerbaijani minorities have been the subject of xenophobic disinformation. Separately, a law against LGBTQ ‘propaganda’ drew criticism from the Venice Commission and EU, among others, (Maldita 2024), including for its pre-electoral timing and potential to worsen social divisions (Commersant 2024).

Violence was reported at several polling stations against activists and the opposition, some being hospitalized. Activists uploaded footage showing ballot stuffing in polling stations, and were attacked by Georgian Dream sympathizers inside polling stations (Edwards and Kennedy 2024). Some election observers were also attacked, both physically and verbally (Parulava 2024). Furthermore, the headquarters of the opposition party United National Movement was attacked on election day (Burrows 2024).

An international election observer mission (IEOM) to Georgia comprised the parliamentary assemblies of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the Council of Europe and NATO, as well as the European Parliament and OSCE’s Office Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The IEOM identified imbalance in financial resources for campaigning and a polarized political and media landscape. According to observers the amendments in the electoral law have undermined trust in Georgian institutions. They also noted party-organized intimidation and vote buying in specifically rural areas (OSCE 2024), some of whom receive their news information information from Russian television (Burrows 2024). 

The OSCE observation mission noted that women politicians in Georgia continue to face stereotyping and violence, while the removal of gender quotas led to fewer female candidates. As a result, only 29 per cent of party list candidates were women, most in non-electable positions, a significant drop from 2020. In parliament, 34 women were elected, making up 23 per cent of the total. Moreover, party programs lacked specific messaging for women, and few women featured in campaigns. While women made up the majority in most lower-level election commissions, only 4 of 17 CEC members were women (OSCE 2024). 

Georgia used electronic devices in almost all polling stations, and the CEC provided voters with information on how to use them during the election period. However, the secrecy of the ballot was still not ensured for all voters (OSCE 2024). The International Republican Institute (IRI) observed violence inside and outside polling stations both before and during election day, political bias within the CEC and an uneven political playing field. It remarked that the Foreign Influence law undermined freedom of expression and association (IRI 2024). NDI similarly noted the same legislation; harassment and intimidation in the pre-election period; and disinformation targeting election observers undermined the fairness of the election (NDI 2024). In a statement issued by the OSCE election observers also noted several complaints of procedural violations and malfunctioning electronic equipment (OSCE 2024).

Before the polls closed, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze claimed victory in advance and a 60 per cent vote share for Georgian Dream (Edwards and Kennedy 2024). The opposition parties did not recognize the results and moved to boycott the parliament (Light and Papachristou 2024; Euronews 2024). President Zourabichvili joined opposition calls to demonstrate against the results, describing the elections as a “blatant fraud” (McLaughlin 2024). On 30 October the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office stated that they would start an investigation of election fraud (Light 2024). The turnout for the election was 58.73 per cent, up by 1.98 per cent since the 2020 election (International IDEA 2024). The Georgian Dream Party received almost 54 per cent of the votes, according to CEC figures (Gabritchidze 2024).