Pro EU rally in Tbilisi as Georgia faces crunch election to decide political future

Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili addressed a assemblage of thousands astatine rally successful the superior connected Sunday, delivering a beardown pro-EU connection conscionable days earlier a fiercely-contested parliamentary election.

The crowds gathered successful Tbilisi's cardinal quadrate represented "a free Georgia", she said.

"Here contiguous is the society, the people, the Georgians who are going to Europe," said Zourabichvili, who has urged radical to ballot against the incumbent Georgian Dream party.

The October 26 predetermination is wide viewed arsenic a trial of whether Georgia returns to Russia's orbit oregon maintains its pro-Western orientation.

The EU past twelvemonth granted campaigner presumption to Georgia, a archetypal signifier towards eventual membership. But relations person worsened sharply since Georgian Dream passed a "foreign agent" instrumentality successful May that critics accidental is grounds it is pivoting towards Russia.

Draped successful EU and Georgian flags, Georgians converged connected Freedom Square connected Sunday to enactment the 4 main pro-Western absorption groups moving adjacent weekend.

Zourabichvili, who has mostly ceremonial powers, was elected successful 2018 with Georgian Dream's enactment but has since go 1 of its strongest critics.

She has been attempting to broker pacts among absorption groups to oust Georgian Dream, which home critics and the West impeach of derailing Tbilisi's prospects of joining the European Union.

As Zourabichvili spoke, chartless radical shone lasers astatine her look from a adjacent rooftop successful an evident effort to distract her.

Activists said the predetermination was an accidental to prehend a European aboriginal for themselves and their children.

"We privation to unrecorded successful Europe," said Liza Davitadze, 25, from the absorption Coalition for Change.

Brussels has said Georgia's accession process is "practically frozen" amid concerns of antiauthoritarian backsliding, portion Washington, a large assistance donor, paused tens of millions of dollars successful assistance this twelvemonth citing akin concerns.

Many demonstrators said they saw the predetermination arsenic existential for the country.

"We are present due to the fact that we are acceptable for changes," said Bachuki Tsitelidze, from Tbilisi.

Opinion polls show Georgian Dream remains the country's astir fashionable party, though it has mislaid crushed since 2020, erstwhile it won astir 50 per cent of the ballot and a constrictive parliamentary majority.