On Thursday, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution explicitly rejecting the legitimacy of Georgia’s parliamentary election and calling for a new vote within a year. 

The resolution was passed with 444 votes in favour, 72 against, and 82 abstentions. 

While individual EU lawmakers and some smaller political groupings have made similar declarations since the election was held on 26 October, the resolution was the clearest sign yet that the EU rejects the results, which handed the ruling Georgian Dream party another four-year term. 

The European Parliament squarely placed the blame for electoral irregularities on Georgian Dream and said it took place against the backdrop of ‘continued democratic backsliding’, which it said the ruling party is ‘fully responsible’ for. 

Lawmakers ‘denounce the numerous and serious electoral violations, including documented cases of intimidation of voters, vote manipulation, interference with election observers and media and reported manipulation involving electronic voting machines’. 

The official results announced by Georgia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) ‘do not serve as a reliable representation of the will of the Georgian people’, lawmakers said. 

As a result, the resolution stipulates that the European Parliament ‘rejects any recognition of the parliamentary elections’, adding that ‘the international community should too’. 

Echoing demands from Georgia’s own political opposition, the European Parliament also ‘want the elections re-run within a year under thorough international supervision and by an independent election administration’. 

The European Parliament has passed similar resolutions in the past, rejecting the results of elections held in Belarus and Venezuela which were widely seen as rigged. It has also opted to take interim steps in other cases, such as a resolution calling for an investigation into irregularities during Serbia’s 2023 parliamentary election. However, the resolution did not reject the results of Serbia’s election outright. 

Sanctions on Georgian Dream leaders

The resolution also explicitly called for the imposition of ‘personal sanctions on the officials and political leaders in Georgia who are responsible for democratic backsliding, violations of electoral laws and standards, and the misuse of state institutions’. 

Several Georgian Dream officials were singled out by name, including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, Mayor of Tbilisi and Georgian Dream Secretary General Kakha Kaladze, parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili, and Georgian Dream founder and honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili.

In addition to sanctions, the resolution also called on the EU to ‘severely restrict formal EU-level contacts with the Georgian government and parliament’. It further noted that Georgia’s path toward EU integration was already suspended before the election due to recently passed ‘anti-democratic’ legislation. 

The resolution also said the European Parliament ‘strongly condemns Russia’s systematic interference in Georgia’s democratic processes’. 

If Georgian Dream follows through on regularly repeated pledges to ban the political opposition, the move ‘would further alienate the country from the EU and make any moves towards EU accession impossible’, it said.

In general, lawmakers said the ‘policies implemented by Georgian Dream are incompatible with Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration’. 

Shortly before the resolution was adopted, Kobakhidze, who had been reconfirmed earlier that day as Georgia’s Prime Minister by the disputed parliament, dismissed it as a ‘mere scrap of paper’, claiming it was not worth discussing. The content of the joint resolution had been made public prior to its adoption on Thursday.

An EU investigation

Although Georgian Dream has inaugurated the new parliament and approved the new government, the election results remain contested, with the Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili and four key opposition groups demanding a redo of the vote.

Challenges have been filed with the Constitutional Court by Zourabichvili and separately by 30 members of the previous parliament, leaving the ruling party’s renewed mandate both legally and politically in question.

Zourabichvili’s decision to reject the parliamentary election results was unprecedented in Georgia’s 33-year history of independence.

Additionally, some opposition-leaning local media outlets have started referring to the new parliament and the government as ‘self-proclaimed’.  

All four opposition groups boycotting the parliament — the Coalition for Change, Unity – National Movement, Strong Georgia, and For Georgia — have advocated for depriving Georgian Dream’s legitimacy both domestically and internationally. As part of these efforts, they have sought to inform the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission about alleged election irregularities, aiming for these issues to be reflected in the Mission’s final report, which is yet to be released. 

On 19 November, three days after Georgian electoral authorities declared Georgian Dream the winner, the EU announced the deployment of a dedicated mission to Georgia to investigate the fraud allegations.

Upon announcing the dispatch of the mission on 19 November, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell reiterated that ‘the door of the European Union will remain open for Georgia, but the course of the government of Georgia, when it comes to the respect of the rule of law and basic principles, including the way the election has been conducted, is turning Georgia away from its European Union integration path'.