Updated! In Georgia, the ruling party wins more than half of the seats in parliament - the president does not recognize the results

Georgia's Central Election Commission has announced that after counting 97% of the votes, the Russian-oriented Georgian Dream party has received the largest number of votes.

According to the press service of the CEC, the ruling party received 54.24% of the vote.

The opposition Coalition for Change gained 10.8%, and the Unity National Movement - 10.07%. The rest of the votes were distributed among smaller opposition parties. Overall, the following opposition forces have managed to cross the five percent threshold:

• "Coalition for Change - 10.8%,
• "Unity-National Movement - 10.07%,
• "Strong Georgia - 8.72%;
• "Gakharia - For Georgia - 7.72%.

However, the leader of former President Mikheil Saakashvili 's Unity-National Movement party, Tina Bokuchava, had previously stated that her political force would not recognize the election results. The leader of the Coalition for Change, Nika Gvaramia, also said that his party would not recognize the election results and accused the ruling party of trying to usurp power.

Also, after the exit polls, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili spoke about the opposition's victory. Instead, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban congratulated the Georgian authorities on their victory in the election without waiting for the official results - despite the contradictory results of the exit polls.

12:58 Georgian CEC announces the victory of the ruling Georgian Dream party, which won 54% of the vote. All opposition parties received less than 10% and called on the West not to recognize the election results. In addition, the opposition plans to give up their seats in parliament in protest.

21:19 Georgian President Zurabishvili does not recognize the parliamentary elections and calls for street protests.

On October 26, the police opened a criminal case over the alleged mass ballot box stuffing at polling station #69 in the Marneuli district. This was announced at a briefing by the head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Georgia, Giorgi Kalandarishvili.

And in the village of Didvela, Baghdat municipality, a citizen broke into a polling station and smashed several electronic voting devices.

Georgian MP from the opposition United National Movement Giorgi Vashadze said that 5 observers from pro-European forces were illegally detained during the elections in the country.

Кирило Бойко