Official results following the election on October 26 gave the governing Georgian Dream party nearly 54 percent of the vote, but the opposition parties that passed the 5 percent threshold and Georgia's president Salome Zurabishvili have said that the result was rigged.

The opposition parties that passed the 5 percent threshold said that they are not going to enter the parliament, they demanded a new election under international supervision and an investigation into the alleged vote rigging.

A distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, a former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, Daniel Fried told the Accent that "there is a lot of evidence that Georgia's October 26 elections were not free and fair, and that the official results are not close to the real vote."

"U.S. and European reaction so far has sought to press for steps to address the problem, including President Biden's call for a broad dialogue.

This gives Georgian authorities a chance to avoid confrontation at home and with their democratic friends. But they may well choose a course of hostility, repression, and dependence on their autocratic backers in the Kremlin, meaning that Georgia will have a poorer, more corrupt, and more isolated future," Fried said.

David Manizhashvili