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TBILISI (Reuters) – The Georgian presidential election was likely to pass in the second round, while the first official results on Sunday showed none of the leaders with enough votes to ensure victory.
A woman votes in a polling station during the presidential election in Tbilisi, Georgia, on October 28, 2018. REUTERS / David Mdzinarishvili
The French ruling party's candidate, Salome Zurabishvili, won 43.2% of the vote and opposition rival Grigol Vashadze won 34.7% of the vote, according to the results of 28% of the polling stations. said the Central Election Commission (CEC) on its website.
"It is now clear that there will be a second round between Salome Zurabishvili and Grigol Vashadze," Irakly Kobakhidze, executive secretary of the ruling party, told the press.
The second ballot will be held no later than December 1st.
According to a survey commissioned by the independent television channel Rustavi-2, Zurabishvili, a former French career diplomat who served as Georgia's foreign minister between 2004 and 2005, was on par with Vashadze, another former minister of foreign affairs. Foreign supported by an opposition coalition.
This poll predicted that no candidate would win more than 50% of the vote and that both would face a second round.
Candidate David Bakradze, former Speaker of Parliament who was lagging behind the leaders, said he would support Vashadze in the second round.
Zurabishvili, 66, was born to Georgian émigrés in France. He was France's ambassador to Georgia before becoming foreign minister.
Supporters say that it would bring international stature to the presidency; opponents criticize her for statements that seemed to blame Georgia for the war with Russia in 2008, remarks on minorities considered by some as a xenophobic and unstable mastery of the Georgian language, that she speaks with an accent.
Zurabishvili was invited to Georgian politics by former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who granted him Georgian citizenship at the head of his foreign ministry, but fired him after a year. She then created her own opposition party, which she headed until 2010 before temporarily leaving politics and returning to France.
She was elected to the Georgian parliament in 2016 with the support of Georgian Dream, a party controlled by Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in the country, whose critics claim that he runs Georgia behind the scenes.
Constitutional changes have weakened the power of the presidency, placing the most authority in the office of prime minister.
But the post is still considered important for the image abroad of a country strongly oriented towards the West and fearing Russia, which invaded the planet a decade ago and supports separatists in two breakaway regions.
Sunday's election was the last one for which the president will be chosen by a popular vote; after that, the presidents will be chosen by an electoral college of 300 legislators and regional leaders.
The country of 3.7 million is Washington's strategic ally in the Caucasus region, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and hopes to one day join the European Union and NATO. Pipelines transporting oil and gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe cross its territory.
Edited by Peter Graff and Cynthia Osterman
