Salome Zourabichvili has appealed to western partners to challenge the “total falsification” of Georgia’s recent parliamentary elections. But a trip to Tbilisi by Hungary’s pro-Russian leader was not what the Georgian president had in mind.
Viktor Orbán arrived in the small Caucasus nation on Monday not to join Zourabichvili and thousands of pro-EU demonstrators decrying the alleged electoral fraud, but in a show of support for the ruling Georgian Dream party. Its de facto leader, the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, is regarded by the Hungary’s prime minister as a political ally and fellow illiberal strongman.
While Brussels and Washington have expressed concern about the legitimacy of Georgia’s election result because of reports of intimidation, ballot-stuffing and fraud at polling stations, Orbán endorsed it.