Results from the borderlands

Time for a quick summary of results from three of the five elections in Russia’s borderlands that we previewed last week. (The others are Moldova, which goes to the second round this Sunday, and Uzbekistan, which can hardly be considered a real election – although the figures are here if you want to try your hand at Uzbek.)

The controversial one is Georgia, where the opposition has called foul after the release of official results that show a swing towards the governing party, Georgian Dream. It has been credited with 53.9% of the vote (up 5.7% on the 2020 result) and 89 of the 150 seats (down one); the four opposition tickets are supposed to have managed 37.8% and 61 seats between them. A range of small parties shared the remaining 8.3%, none of them reaching the 5% threshold to win seats.

While there’s not the same statistical smoking gun that there was three months ago in Venezuela, these results are nonetheless deeply implausible. Opinion polls beforehand, other than those from a single pro-government pollster, had all put Georgian Dream below 40%, and there are multiple reports of violence and shady practice at polling places. President Salome Zurabishvili, who was elected with the support of Georgian Dream but subsequently parted company, has been particularly forthright in backing the opposition’s claims and refusing to recognise the result.

Whether the protests will have any effect is hard to say. Georgian Dream has the support of all the usual suspects, including not only Russia but also Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, whose Putinism seems to be getting ever more explicit. On the other hand, the Europeans have a powerful lever in the promise of EU membership talks, and Georgians in the past have shown that governments can be toppled in the streets as well as at the polls.

Much less trouble in Lithuania, where Russia has few allies. The second round of its parliamentary election was even better for the opposition than the first round. The Social Democrats (centre-left) overtook their opponents in many of the single-member constituencies to finish with a total of 52 seats, four times as many as they had won in 2020. The governing centre-right party, Homeland, drops from 50 to just 28.

Together with their prospective coalition partners, the greenish Union of Democrats (new with 14 seats) and the Farmers & Greens Union (eight seats, down 24), the Social Democrats will have 74 of the 141 seats, a workable majority. Their leader, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, says she prefers to remain in the European parliament and won’t be a candidate for prime minister herself; former leader Gintautas Paluckas has been suggested for the job in her place.

Finally to Bulgaria, which held its seventh election in less than four years. This time there was even less change than back in April; the centre-right GERB, which led then with 24.0% and 68 seats (out of 240), improved just slightly to 26.4% and 69 seats.

Most of the others made small gains or losses as well: DPS (liberal establishment) up two seats to 49, although now divided between two hostile factions; PP-DB (centrist reformist) down two to 37; Revival (far right) down three to 35; Socialists up one to 20; ITN (populist) up two to 18. Two other far-right parties switched places – Velichie, previously on 13 seats, fell (just) below the 4% threshold and dropped out, but Morality, Unity, Honor with 4.4% just made it in and won 12 seats.

Clearly the basic arithmetic is unchanged. Practically speaking GERB has to be part of any majority coalition; it could partner with PP-DB and then either ITN or one of the factions of DPS, or if both halves of DPS came in it could dispense with PP-DB and just take ITN. But none of this is really new. The key thing is for the country’s politicians to learn to co-operate, which they have so conspicuously failed to do in the recent past.