Georgia election: PM rejects vote-rigging claims as president calls mass rally

Irakli Kobakhidze tells the BBC his ruling party won the vote by a landslide, but the president says it was a fraud.

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"Irregularities happen everywhere, in every country," Irakli Kobakhidze of the Georgian Dream party told the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in an exclusive interview.

Official preliminary results from Georgia's election commission gave the ruling Georgian Dream an outright majority of 54%, despite exit polls for opposition TV channels suggesting four opposition parties had won.

Georgia's pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, has condemned the "total falsification" of the vote and called for opposition supporters to rally outside parliament on Monday.

Election observers in this South Caucasus state bordering Russia have complained of an "uneven playing field" in the election, suggesting the scale of vote violations may have affected the result.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78ddj25kgvo

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