In Georgian capital, Hungary’s Orban says election was fair

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TBILISI (Reuters) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday that the election in Georgia won by the ruling party was free and democratic, as he congratulated his Georgian counterpart Irakli Kobakhidze during a visit to Tbilisi.

Thousands of people protested outside Georgia’s parliament in Tbilisi on Monday after reports of voting irregularities.

The ruling Georgian Dream party and the electoral commission say the vote was free and fair, while Western powers have called for investigations.

“I read the assessment of international organisations and I see that nobody dares question that this election was a fair and democratic election,” Orban told a news conference. “Alongside all the criticism nobody dared go that far.”

A series of violations were reported on Sunday by monitoring missions including the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The groups said the alleged violations, including ballot-stuffing, bribery, voter intimidation and violence near polling stations, could have affected the result but stopped short of calling the outcome fraudulent.

Pro-Western Georgians had cast the vote as a choice between a ruling party that has deepened ties with Russia and an opposition aiming to fast-track integration with Europe.

Hungary, which holds the European Council’s rotating presidency, has angered fellow EU and NATO members with its determination to maintain close ties with Russia despite the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“We criticize Prime Minister Orban’s premature visit to Georgia,” a group of 13 EU foreign and European affairs ministers said in a joint statement on Monday. “He does not speak on behalf of the EU.”

Orban also stoked controversy in July when he went on what Budapest called a “peace mission” to Moscow and Beijing at the start of Hungary’s European Council presidency without coordinating with his EU partners.

Georgian Dream has faced criticism from the EU and the United States over some of its policies and it has forged cordial ties with Russia, but the party says it fully supports the country’s bid to join the EU.

Orban said he supported Georgia in its path toward EU accession, adding that the election result was a “pro-European choice”.

“Hungary has been an ardent supporter of Georgia on the path to European integration, and Hungary played a special role in Georgia’s acquisition of candidate status,” Kobakhidze said. “For this, I would like to personally thank Viktor Orban.”

Georgia was given candidate status last December but the EU has repeatedly said its application is frozen over what Brussels says are Georgian Dream’s authoritarian tendencies.