Georgian presidential election to go to second round
By Trend
Georgia's presidential election will go to a second round run-off after no candidate won more than 50% of Sunday’s vote, according to preliminary results from the Election Administration. With over 99% of votes counted, Georgian Dream–endorsed candidate Salome Zurabishvili leads with 39% of votes with the UNM’s Grigol Vashadze in second with 38%, OC Media reports.
A runoff will take place between the two no later than 1 December.
According to the Election Administration, turnout for Sunday’s vote was 46.7%, almost identical to the 46.6% during the previous president election in 2013.
Around an hour before the first preliminary results came in, Georgian Dream’s Irakli Kobakhidze, Speaker of Parliament, conceded that a second round would be ‘needed’.
‘We said that nearly every second voter supports Georgian Dream. In this case, it was almost like this, but we were just short of winning in the first round.’