The unpopular ruling party in Georgia is put to the test during the presidential vote

The Georgians went to the polls on Sunday to elect a president, a crucial vote for the increasingly unpopular party in power.

The former French ambbadador and former Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili, backed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, was at the center of a close fight with the opposition leader. Grigol Vashadze, also former Foreign Minister.

According to the latest polls, neither candidate should win the 50% needed, plus one vote, to avoid a second round.

However, Irakli Kobakhidze, speaker of the Georgian parliament and one of the leaders of the Georgian dream, said at a press conference that Mr Zurabishvili "garnered more than 50% of the vote and was likely to win at first. tower".

Vashadze said the government "is preparing a mbadive electoral fraud – buying votes and stuffing votes." He said opposition monitors had documented hundreds of cases of electoral violations.

Voter turnout rose to more than 38% at 17:00 local time (13:00 GMT), the central election commission announced.

"I want a woman to become president of Georgia," Liza Mikeladze, a 59-year-old female voter at a polling station in central Tbilisi, told AFP after voting for Zurabishvili.

Another voter, Niko Shelia, a 28-year-old information technology specialist, said that he "had voted for Vashadze because it was necessary to give the opposition a chance, because the power of Georgian Dream was a nightmare ".

Vashadze – supported by the Unified National Movement (MNU) and ex-president of ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili and 10 other opposition groups – has been bolstered by growing popular discontent with the Government's inability to fight poverty.

During a difficult campaign, Vashadze criticized the "informal government of the oligarchs" of Bidzina Ivanishvili, leader of the billionaire party "The Georgian Dream".

Ivanishvili, Georgia's richest man, left his post of prime minister in 2013 after only one year in office, but it is still thought that he is de facto the de facto leader of the country of 4 , 5 million backstage inhabitants.

During the election campaign, Zurabishvili and Georgian Dream criticized the UNM for alleged violations of human rights during his previous term.

The presidential campaign is a prelude to the parliamentary polls scheduled for 2020.

"The camp that wins the presidential vote takes the upper hand in parliamentary elections," said badyst Ghia Nodia.

If elected, Vashadze promised to run a campaign for early parliamentary elections.

– rival diplomats?

Zurabishvili, an elegant 66-year-old independent MP, is the daughter of refugees who fled Georgia in 1921 to Paris after the country was annexed by the Red Army.

His career at the French Foreign Ministry culminated in his posting to Tbilisi.

Saakashvili then appointed his foreign minister – after approving the move with French leader Jacques Chirac.

But it quickly made enemies in the ranks of the parliamentary majority, while MPs and several senior diplomats publicly accused it of arrogance and impulsiveness.

She was fired after a year of work but thousands of people took to the streets of the capital to protest against her dismissal.

She then joined the opposition and became one of Saakashvili's fiercest critics.

His main rival, Vashadze, is a respected career diplomat who served in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, where he contributed to the drafting of the Soviet-American treaty on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive weapons.

Aged 60, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saakashvili from 2008 to 2012.

Vashadze is married to world famous prima ballerina Nina Ananiashvili.

Both candidates promised to bring Georgia closer to full membership of the European Union and NATO.

The small Black Sea country has been knocking on NATO's doorstep for more than a decade, but the bloc has not yet officially registered Tbilisi on its membership list, despite the commitment from 2008 to be admitted to the club.

The vote is Georgia's latest direct survey on leadership as it shifts to a form of parliamentary governance as a result of constitutional reform. After the inauguration, the new head of state will be an essentially ceremonial character.

The next Georgian president will be elected in 2024 by an electoral college of 300 members.

More than 3.5 million people have the right to vote in elections, under the supervision of international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

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