Georgians yesterday went to the polls to elect a figurehead president in a vote seen as a crucial test for the increasingly unpopular ruling party.
The hotly contested race has pitted ex-French ambassador and former Georgian minister of foreign affairs Salome Zurabishvili, supported by the ruling Georgian Dream party, against opposition leader Grigol Vashadze, also a former foreign minister.
The two had an almost equal chance of being elected, but neither was expected to get the necessary 50 percent plus one vote to win in the first round, according to opinion polls conducted in the run-up to the vote.
Vashadze — backed by exiled former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) and 10 other opposition groups — has been boosted by growing popular discontent over the government’s failure to tackle poverty.
Over a fraught campaign, Vashadze has lashed out against what he has said is official graft and political meddling in the judiciary.
On the campaign trail, Zurabishvili and Georgian Dream have slammed the UNM for alleged human rights abuses during its previous stretch in power.
Vashadze has also criticized the “informal oligarch rule” of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire leader of the Georgian Dream party.
Georgia’s richest man, Ivanishvili in 2013 stepped down as prime minister after just one year in office, but is still widely believed to rule the country of 4.5 million people from behind the scenes.
The presidential campaign saw the ruling party and the opposition cross swords in what is a prelude to their decisive stand-off during parliamentary polls scheduled for 2020, analysts said.
“Over the last several months, the Georgian Dream and the opposition have been rehearsing their pitched battle, which will take place during the legislative elections,” political analyst Tornike Sharashenidze told reporters.
“The ruling party knows that its defeat in presidential polls will be the beginning of its end,” analyst Ghia Nodia said.
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