Did we just witness Georgia go from dream to nightmare?

Last Saturday, Georgians went to the polls in a critical parliamentary election that President Salome Zourabichvili described as a referendum on the country’s European future.

It is a future that Georgians have fervently supported through countless rallies and protests in recent years against the pro-Kremlin drift of the current ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD).

This election, the first conducted under a fully proportional system, raised hopes of a multi-party government.

Yet, instead of marking a turning point, GD claimed a sweeping 54 % of the vote, securing 89 out of 150 seats in parliament, thus clinging onto majority control for the fourth consecutive term since 2012.

As noted by election observation missions, including OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), serious irregularities were observed well before and on election day.

This comes as no surprise, as GD entered this race with a toolkit it’s polished over the past decade, perfecting the art of vote-buying, voter intimidation, exploitation of state resources and Kremlin-like disinformation.

GD’s election campaign used scare tactics, including blaming the EU and US for the war in Ukraine and projecting the vote as a choice between war and peace, as exhibited on billboards comparing war-torn Ukrainian cities to untouched Georgian towns.

This Kremlin-like disinformation campaign mirrors similar tactics used during Moldova's recent presidential elections and referendum.

Closer to election day, GD’s vote-buying blitz targeted the poor, as well as criminals and the Georgian Orthodox Church. It passed a bill "on amnesty", releasing thousands of prisoners and allegedly leveraging criminal networks to corral votes.

Meanwhile, the Orthodox