Orbán arrives in Georgia after hailing ruling party for ‘overwhelming victory’

 

Orbán arrives in Georgia after hailing ruling party for ‘overwhelming victory’

 

Hungary PM’s visit prompts anger in EU amid widespread concerns about voter intimidation and coercion

 

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels, and Pjotr Sauer in Tbilisi

Mon 28 Oct 2024 14.56 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/28/viktor-orban-georgia-hailing-ruling-party-election-victory

 

Viktor Orbán has landed in Georgia after congratulating the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party for its “overwhelming victory” in parliamentary elections despite widespread concerns about intimidation and coercion of voters.

 

Hungary’s prime minister is leading a delegation of his senior ministers to meet Georgia’s prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, in a two-day visit that is likely to anger fellow EU leaders at a time when Hungary holds the rotating EU presidency.

 

Orbán “does not represent the European Union” on his visit, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told Spanish public radio on Monday. “The union’s rotating president has no authority in foreign policy,” he added.

 

In a statement released on Sunday, co-signed with the European Commission, Borrell flagged concerns about reported pressure and intimidation of voters during Saturday’s elections. “We call on the central election commission of Georgia and other relevant authorities to fulfil their duty to swiftly, transparently and independently investigate and adjudicate electoral irregularities and allegations thereof.”

 

The governments of Hungary and Georgia have drawn closer in recent years, with both focusing their policies on conservative “Christian” values and calling for “peace” in Ukraine while avoiding any condemnation of Russia.

 

The Hungarian leader arrived in Tbilisi as the opposition holds a protest rally on Monday evening over the election results, which dealt a blow to Georgia’s EU membership hopes. Georgia’s pro-EU president, Salome Zourabichvili, has said she does not recognise the results and that her country had fallen victim to a “Russian special operation”.

 

Zourabichvili said on Monday that GD had won only 40% of the vote, a figure broadly in line with two exit polls that showed the opposition winning a majority of seats in parliament. The country’s election commission announced on Sunday that GD had won 54% of the vote, a result securing its increasingly authoritarian hold on power for another four years.

 

An exit poll commissioned by the GD-supporting Imedi TV channel had put the ruling party on 56%.

 

Orbán issued his congratulations to Kobakhidze and GD for “their overwhelming victory” on Saturday, before the election results had even been published.

 

A team from the European parliament sent to observe the elections said it found one case of ballot box stuffing, as well as “physical assault on observers attempting to report on violations, observer and media removal from polling stations, tearing up of observer complaints, intimidation of voters inside and outside of polling stations, presence of multiple party-affiliated observers posing as citizen observers”.

 

The Spanish centre-right MEP Antonio López-Istúriz White, who led the delegation, also said there had been efforts “to undermine and manipulate the vote”, such as pressure on state employees to take part in campaign events and vote, as well as misuse of state resources to benefit the ruling party. “We express deep concern about the democratic backsliding in Georgia,” he said.

 

The Dutch MEP Thijs Reuten, who was not part of the delegation, called on the EU’s 26 other member states and the commission to push back against the Hungarian leader. “Orbán legitimising these elections undermines the EU itself,” he wrote on X.

 

However, western leaders have stopped short of saying the elections were stolen or falsified, instead urging GD to address the delegation’s findings.

 

The former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt tweeted: “As Georgia is channelled towards Moscow with Kremlin interference, Viktor Orbán flies to Tbilisi to endorse a corrupted election. An EU leader now openly working for Moscow & Europe’s democrats sit idle! First step … finally remove Orbán’s EU voting rights.”

 

The European parliament launched a sanctions procedure against Orbán’s government in 2018 that could ultimately strip Hungary of EU voting rights, but the process has languished.

 

Orbán’s spokesperson said he had been invited by Kobakhidze and would be accompanied by Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, economy minister, Márton Nagy, and finance minister, Mihály Varga.

 

It echoes a furore over the Hungarian leader’s freelance diplomacy in the summer, when he visited Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing and Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on a so-called peace mission.

 

It also sets the stage for a rocky EU summit next week, when leaders will gather in Budapest, formally to discuss the bloc’s single market. Charles Michel, the European Council president, announced on Sunday that Georgia would be added to the agenda.

 

“Alleged irregularities must be seriously clarified and addressed,” he wrote on X. “We reiterate the EU’s call to the Georgian leadership to demonstrate its firm commitment to the country’s EU path.”