Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has congratulated the government-backed winner of a hotly contested presidential election held in neighboring Georgia.
“Your election as Georgia’s first female President is a truly historic event, and I sincerely hope that your presidency will be marked by continued progress and prosperity in Georgia,” Pashinian said in a message to Salome Zurabishvili sent on Thursday.
“I am confident that proceeding from our peoples’ centuries-old friendship and shared values, we will continue to strengthen relations between the two countries through joint efforts in an atmosphere of mutual trust and understanding,” he said.
According to Georgia’s Central Election Commission (CEC), the French-born Zurabishvili, who has the backing of billionaire former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili's ruling Georgian Dream party, won 59.52 percent of the vote. Her main challenger, Grigol Vashadze, received 40.48 percent in the November 28 runoff, the commission said.
Vashadze, who is supported by opposition groups led by ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement, rejected the official results as fraudulent. He called for "a mass peaceful demonstration" in Tbilisi on December 2.
International observers said that the ballot was “competitive” but that Zurabishvili “enjoyed an undue advantage.”
The CEC figures show that Zurabishvili did well in the Javakheti region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians. The former French diplomat reportedly got around 64 percent of the vote in the local towns of Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda.
Zurabishvili courted Javakheti Armenians during the election campaign. “One president [Saakashvili] gave citizenship to numerous Turks but didn’t give it to you,” she said in Ninotsminda, sparking accusations of xenophobia.
Like Armenia, Georgia is a parliamentary republic whose president has few executive powers.
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