MARK ALMOND: Disputed Georgia poll result may destabilise the region

It’s hard to think of a country in a more geopolitically sensitive position than Georgia.

The former Soviet state of 3.8 million people is trapped between Russia to the north, Turkey to the south and war-torn Ukraine across the Black Sea. 

Oh, and Iran is less than 150 miles to the south-east.

This is what makes Saturday’s disputed election result so important to the rest of the world.

Ruling party, Georgian Dream, was declared the winner with 54 per cent of the vote – but its victory came amid allegations of violence, intimidation and poll violations.

Ruling party, Georgian Dream, was declared the winner with 54 per cent of the vote – but its victory came amid allegations of violence, intimidation and poll violations. Pictured: Voters collect their ballot papers and cast their vote during Georgian Elections Day on October 26

The opposition refused to recognise the result but they will be hard-pressed to overturn it as Georgian Dream is bankrolled by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Kremlin-friendly oligarch worth $4.9billion – just under a sixth of Georgia’s GDP.

Ivanishvili even enjoyed a spell as prime minister in 2012 after his party became Georgia’s first opposition grouping to win power at the ballot box rather than via a popular insurrection.

He stepped down 13 months later but has continued to exert a spectral influence over his homeland thanks to his vast fortune and the palatial, space-age mansion he owns that dominates the south-west skyline of the country’s capital, Tbilisi.

Many Georgians see a close alliance with the West, through joining the EU and Nato, as the best deterrence against Russia.

But Ivanishvili, who started out as a West-leaning politician, has performed an 180-degree turn in the intervening years.

And before Saturday’s election, he backed a Russian-style law labelling many oppositionists and human rights groups ‘foreign agents’.

He called the opposition a ‘party of war’, playing on fears of a conflict with Russia if his party did not win. 

Georgia lost territory to Kremlin-backed rebels in 2008, with the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia breaking away.

Pictured: People participate in a pre-election rally for the Georgian Dream party in Tbilisi, Georgia on October 23

Ivanishvili also warned voters that Putin could launch another destructive invasion, similar to his attack on Ukraine, only with Georgia the victim this time round.

Could Georgia face the kind of mass demonstrations which ushered in a new government in Ukraine ten years ago?

It’s hard to tell. Georgia’s President, Salome Zourabichvili, is hostile to Ivanishvili and trying to herd his rivals together. 

The coming days will be tense but will the opposition parties be able to galvanise their supporters into coming out onto the streets?

And if they do, how will Ivanishvili’s supporters react?

The government controls the police but can be much less confident of what Georgia’s small but Nato-trained army would do if ordered onto the streets of Tbilisi to suppress protests.

Ivanishvili’s propaganda plays on fears that Georgia could slip back into the civil war violence of 30 years ago.

But caving in to the Kremlin could bring Georgia back under Russia’s domination in any case.