Some three and a half million Georgians will be eligible to cast their ballots in the country’s first fully proportional vote that follows months of anti-democratic drifts by the ruling Georgian Dream party, including passing Foreign Agents Law and anti-LGBT legislation. The moves led to the suspension of the country’s EU integration process months after it became a candidate country, leaving pro-European and pro-democracy Georgians fearful of their country’s irreversible descent into authoritarianism.

Pro-Western opposition parties and coalitions will attempt to challenge Georgian Dream’s 12-year rule. But with the ruling party’s vast administrative, financial, and media resources, and the government’s escalating anti-LGBT propaganda, anti-Western conspiracies, and fear-mongering about Georgia repeating Ukraine’s fate of the Russian aggression, there is a widespread understanding that the race will be close, and the stakes will be high.

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“It is very noticeable that a large part of the citizens not only want to participate in the elections but also want to observe,” Nino Dolidze, head of the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), Georgia’s key election watchdog group, tells Civil.ge.

The deployment of observers has increased especially in the overseas districts, Dolidze notes. There were special efforts this year to increase the participation of expatriate voters, which has traditionally been insignificant despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Georgian citizens live outside the country. 95,910 Georgians registered to vote abroad, about 45 percent more than in 2020, and while authorities did not open polling stations in various cities despite demand, there are active civic initiatives to help Georgian emigres with transportation on election day.