By Félix Light and Lucy Papachristou

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgians voted on Saturday in a legislative election described by both sides as an existential battle that will determine whether the country integrates closely with the West or retreats toward Russia.

The vote pits the ruling Georgian Dream party, in power since 2012, against four main blocs representing the pro-Western opposition. Polling stations opened at 04:00 GMT and will close at 16:00 GMT, with some 3.5 million Georgians eligible to vote.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder and former prime minister of billionaire and lonely Georgian Dream, said the election was “a very simple choice”.

“Either we elect a government that serves you, the Georgian people… or we elect an agent of a foreign country who will only fulfill the tasks of a foreign country,” said Ivanishvili, considered the main power of the country. voted on Saturday in Tbilisi.

“This day will determine the future of Georgia,” President Salome Zourabichvili, a critic of the Georgian Dream whose powers are largely ceremonial, said after voting in the capital.

“Tonight there will be a victory and that victory will be Georgia’s, all of Georgia’s,” she said.

Georgia, which lost swaths of its territory to Russian-backed separatists in the 1990s and was defeated in a brief Russian invasion in 2008, was for decades one of the most pro-Western people from the Soviet Union.

But since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Georgian Dream has moved the country decisively back into Moscow’s orbit, accusing the West of trying to lure it into war. The opposition calls this change a betrayal of Georgia’s European future.

Media favorable to the opposing camps published rival polls, with pro-opposition channels predicting that Georgian Dream would lose its majority, and those supporting the ruling party predicting a landslide victory with its best result ever.

Although all sides have said they hope for a peaceful vote, the Caucasus country has had a volatile political history since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, with several popular uprisings and episodes of civil unrest.

This year, authorities used force to disperse protests against a law requiring groups receiving funds from abroad to register as foreign agents, which the opposition and the West called a drastic measure. Russian inspiration aimed at stifling dissent.

“WORLD WAR FESTIVAL”

Ivanishvili framed Saturday’s elections as an existential fight to prevent what he calls a “World War Party” in the West from pushing Tbilisi into direct conflict with Moscow.

“For now, some people don’t understand the danger they might face if we are defeated. But we will do our best to win and show the people the right path,” Dream activist Sandro Dvalishvili told Reuters Georgian.

Georgian Dream says its goal is to secure three-quarters of the seats in parliament in order to introduce a constitutional ban on the main opposition party, the United National Movement.

Opposition parties and President Zurabichvili accuse Georgian Dream of buying votes and intimidating voters, which they deny.

Opposition activists say only a close alliance with the West, including membership in the European Union, would protect Georgia from Russia.

“The hunger of Russian imperialism knows no bounds. And that is why we need strong allies. And these strong allies are in the European Union,” said Nana Malashkhia, a former civil servant who became famous last year after she was filmed waving an EU flag as she was shot with a police water cannon during a protest. She is now running for Parliament.

Last year, the EU granted Georgia candidate status for membership, but suspended its application in response to what it sees as a backsliding of democracy under the Georgian Dream.

The four main opposition parties aim to form a coalition government to oust Georgian Dream from power and put Georgia back on track to join the EU.

(Reporting by Felix Light and Lucy Papachristou; editing by Peter Graff and Mark Heinrich)