Georgia is voting in a high-stakes election under the specter of Russian interference

Ballot stuffing was among violations reported Saturday during Georgia’s parliamentary elections, which are seen as a battle between Tbilisi’s trajectory to eu and its return to Moscow’s orbit.

Georgia’s Central Election Commission closed a polling station in the southern city of Marneuli after footage emerged of ballots being pushed into a ballot box, prompting an Interior Ministry investigation, Georgian media reported OWL.

In an update provided to Newsweek At 5:00 p.m. local time on Saturday, the Georgian election monitoring group, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, said “several problematic incidents and violations were recorded across the country.”

These include violation of the secrecy of the vote, restrictions on the rights of observers and physical violence against them, mobilization of voters and malfunctioning of electronic devices.

There were also reports of intimidation and unauthorized gatherings of people near polling booths affiliated with the ruling Georgian Dream party.

Bidzina Ivanishvili founded Georgian Dream in 2012, and the party has been accused of rolling back democracy. Ivanishvili has promised to ban opposition parties, the largest of which is the United National Movement, if GD wins by a large enough margin.

Polls show four out of five Georgians support EU membership, which made the Caucasus country a candidate last year. But the process was halted after the government passed a law requiring groups to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive 20 percent of funding from abroad, similar to Russian law.

Ivanishvili’s party has sought closer ties with Russia, with whom Georgia fought a brief war in 2008, after which the republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia unilaterally declared independence, which was recognized by Moscow.

News station Mtavari TV told X, earlier Twitterthat his journalists had been attacked by “Georgian Dream thugs” who gathered near the polling station on Saturday. Video posted on social media showed violent beatings at polling stations.

Newsweek has contacted Georgian Dream for comment.

Opinion polls indicate that GD has won about a third of the vote, but four opposition groups believe they can combine forces to oust him from power. In the run-up to the vote, there were reports of violence and obstruction of the campaign, particularly against opposition politicians, as there were claims that Russia was interfering in the plebiscite.

“If the opposition suspects significant foul play in the vote, protests are likely, similar to the demonstrations against the controversial Foreign Agents Act in 2023 and 2024,” said Saif Islam, associate at geopolitical and cyber risk consultancy S-RM. Newsweek.

He added that the US has imposed sanctions on Georgian government officials since the foreign agents law was approved in May and that “further sanctions are possible if the elections are not deemed free and fair.”

The BBC reported that Tina Bokuchava, president of the United National Movement, said all credible polls put the opposition in the lead, while pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili said Saturday: “We voted for a new Georgia.”