On Oct. 26, the South Caucasus nation of Georgia held parliamentary elections, the results of which caused great domestic and foreign controversy. The Georgian Dream party claimed victory with 54% of votes, capturing 89 out of the 150 seats in the parliament. Though the results were called official by the Election Administration of Georgia, the main four opposition parties, which have collectively received 37.5% of the votes, called the results illegitimate.

The Georgian Dream party has been ruling Georgia for the past 12 years, orchestrating and overseeing actions that have made Georgia stray away from their decades-long journey towards the European Union and NATO, ultimately freezing the EU accession negotiations. Earlier this year, the party passed a controversial “foreign agents” law, which was widely seen as a crackdown on Georgian NGOs and media and resulted in protests in Tbilisi.

The President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili called on the Georgian people to protest the recent election results, calling the country “a victim of a Russian special operation”. The election was marked by "an uneven playing field, pressure, and tension,” according to international observers. Local election observers recorded instances of vote buying, double voting, physical violence, and intimidation, all culminating in the international community declaring the election result to be not free and fair.

The elections mark another nail in the coffin of Georgia’s distancing from the EU. The vote was seen as a test of the country’s democratic credentials and commitment to joining the EU, though the EU future of Georgia seems more and more unlikely.