Georgian police clash with protesters as ruling party says it wins local elections

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By Lucy Papachristou and Felix Light

TBILISI (Reuters) -Georgian riot police used pepper spray and water cannon to force protesters away from the presidential palace on Saturday as the opposition staged a large demonstration on the day of municipal elections.

The governing Georgian Dream (GD) party said it had clinched victory in every municipality across the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million in an election boycotted by the two largest opposition blocs.

Shortly before polls closed on Saturday, a group of demonstrators attempted to force entry to the presidential palace in the capital Tbilisi, a Reuters witness said, after opposition figures called for a “peaceful revolution” against GD, which they accuse of being pro-Russian and authoritarian.

PROTESTS UNDER WAY SINCE LAST OCTOBER

Georgia’s pro-Western opposition has been staging protests since October last year, when GD won a parliamentary election that its critics say was fraudulent. The party has rejected accusations of vote-rigging.

Once one of the most pro-Western nations to emerge from the ashes of the Soviet Union, Georgia’s ties with the West have frayed since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The government froze accession talks to the European Union soon after last year’s vote, abruptly halting a longstanding national goal and triggering large demonstrations that have continued since.

On Saturday, thousands of protesters gathered on Tbilisi’s central Freedom Square and Rustaveli Avenue, waving Georgian and EU flags.

Davit Mzhavanadze, who attended the demonstration, said the protests were part of “a deep crisis which is absolutely formed by our pro-Russian and authoritarian government.”

“I think this protest will continue until these demands will be responded to properly from our government,” he said.

A smaller group of demonstrators marched to the presidential palace and were repelled by police after attempting to break into the building. Some of them then barricaded a nearby street, lighting fires and facing off with riot police.

Georgian Dream, which is widely seen as controlled by founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man and a former prime minister, denies it is pro-Moscow. It says it wants to join the EU while preserving peace with Russia, its huge neighbour to the north.

(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou and Felix Light; Editing by Mark Potter and Timothy Heritage)