Pro-Western parties in Georgia protest election outcome: LIVE UPDATES

The country’s president and several opposition groups have refused to accept a resounding defeat in the parliamentary vote

Crowds of protesters have gathered in the center of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, after the country’s pro-Western opposition parties declared they are rejecting the official results of parliamentary elections, alleging irregularities.

Preliminary results of Sunday’s elections showed the ruling Georgian Dream party got almost 54% of the vote, while no opposition party got more than 11%.

President Salome Zourabichvili has denounced the election as illegitimate and called for protests in the streets to force the government to call a new election.

Encouraging protests, Zourabichvili had told Georgians that their votes had been “stolen” and accused Georgian Dream of attempting to “steal the future” of the country. She also claimed to have spoken with multiple foreign governments that are also refusing to recognize the election as legitimate.

Despite Zourabichvili calling the election a “total fraud,” the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported that it observed no systemic voting irregularities. It did, however, claim to have observed incidents of vote-buying and pressure on public sector employees, but praised the diversity of choices on the ballot.