Both sides are claiming victory in the crucial vote on the future of Europe

Georgia’s increasingly authoritarian ruling party is set to come out on top in a key poll focused on the country’s future path in Europe, rival exit polls say.

However, the two exit polls do not agree on who will be able to form the majority. Both the ruling Georgian Dream party of billionaire businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili and opposition groups seeking to end 12 years in power claimed victory.

Projected results will give a clearer indication in the coming hours.

Georgians turned out in large numbers on Saturday in the South Caucasus state bordering Russia, and there were numerous reports of voting violations and violence outside polling stations.

Two people ended up in hospital, and the headquarters of the largest opposition party was attacked by supporters of the ruling party.

An opposition official in a town south of the capital Tbilisi told the BBC he was first beaten by a local Georgian Dream councilor and then “10 other men came and I didn’t know what was happening to me”.

The opposition described this high-stakes vote as a choice between Europe or Russia.

If the opposition TV exit poll is supported by the results, they have a chance to beat Georgian Dream after three terms.

“This is the moment. In the future there may not be such a moment,” opposition voter Levan Benidze, 36, told the BBC. “I know there’s a lot of geopolitical risk — from Russia — but this could be the key moment, a turning point.”

Opposition TV channels gave Georgian Dream 40.9% of the vote, but the total for the four opposition groups combined was estimated at 51.9%. Government-backed Imedi TV offered Georgian Dream 56%.

Under Georgia’s new voting system, whoever wins half the votes wins half of the 150 seats in parliament.

Although Georgia applied to join the European Union last December, the move has now been frozen by the EU due to “democratic backlash – notably a Russian-style ‘foreign influence’ law targeting groups receiving Western funding .

The USSR may have ceased to exist more than three decades ago, but Moscow still considers much of the former Soviet empire its own backyard and Russian sphere of influence.

Georgian Dream’s campaign promise of a “pragmatic” Russia policy will be appreciated, not to mention Brussels’ decision earlier this year to halt Georgia’s EU accession process.

Bidzina Ivanishvili’s rhetoric has become increasingly anti-Western, indicating that a fourth term for Georgian Dream could drag the country back into Russia’s orbit.

Georgians had a simple choice, the party’s founder said after the vote in Tbilisi: either a government that served them, or an opposition of “foreign agents, who will only carry out the orders of a foreign country.”

He has repeatedly spoken of a “global war party” pushing the opposition to join the war in Ukraine, and Georgian Dream (GD) is considered the party of peace. For many voters the message worked.

“The most important thing – for me, my family, my grandchildren – is the peace that I wish for all Georgians,” GD voter Tinatin Gvelesiani, 55, told the BBC at a polling station in Kojori , southwest of the capital. “Only the Georgian Dream” would bring peace, she added.

Election observers reported a range of violations across the country, from ballot stuffing inside polling stations to voter intimidation outside.

With less than an hour to go until polls close, pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili appealed to opposition voters not to be intimidated.

“Don’t be scared. This is all just psychological pressure on you,” she said in a live address on social media.

The intimidation turned to violence for Azat Karimov, 35, the local chairman of the largest opposition United National Movement party in Marneuli, south of Tbilisi.

He told the BBC how he was attacked when his team tried to investigate votes rigged by Georgian Dream officials. He also alleged that voters were bribed to support the ruling party.

“(A Georgian Dream councillor) came with 10-20 people … before the police came I told him to calm down. Immediately the councilor started beating me”.

On the eve of the vote, a Georgian monitoring group highlighted a Russian disinformation campaign targeting the election.

The Kremlin has denied meddling in Georgia’s internal affairs and accused the West of “unprecedented attempts” to interfere.

Earlier this year, Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR, accused the United States of planning a “Color Revolution” in Georgia.