Demonstrators gathered in the Georgian capital on Monday evening to protest against the allegedly rigged results of the country’s October 26 parliamentary elections, which saw the incumbent Georgia Dream party win a fourth term in power with 54% of votes.

A thousands-strong crowd marched from Tbilisi’s Station Square train station to the parliament building on Rustaveli Avenue, singing, chanting, and waving EU and Georgian flags. The mood was buoyant and cheerful, but energy levels seemed to fall once protesters gathered on Rustaveli and it became clear that turnout was way below last week’s demo.

Speaking on a stage outside parliament, Georgia’s pro-Western opposition, who have rejected GD’s victory and claim the elections were “stolen”, announced daily protests as part of a campaign of “resistance”, with the key demand being another round of voting carried out under international supervision. 

The first of these demonstrations will take place on Tuesday afternoon at the Sports Palace in the Saburtalo area of Tbilisi, and their location will change each day.

“Not one of us from the opposition will enter this parliament…We will be in the streets every day”, cried Coalition for Change leader Nika Melia, whose voice cracked with exhaustion and overuse. 

“It is resistance, it is civil activity, it is being outside not only on Rustaveli [Avenue], but everywhere we can, to gather and make our voices heard”, added Melia’s colleague, Levan Tsutskiridze. 

Representatives from the coalitions Strong Georgia, Unity and Coalition for Change each took their turn at the microphone, silhouetted against a huge, illuminated map showing Georgia’s entire sovereign territory, devoid of the boundary lines of the breakaway de facto Russian puppet states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This image of a whole Georgia was a clear statement by the opposition in response to a map of Georgia excluding the separatist regions which GD member Shalva Papuashvili included in a televised presentation just hours before Monday’s protest.

The section of protesters directly in front of the stage were receptive to the speakers, clapping and cheering sporadically throughout each speech. However, in both flanks of the crowd most were talking amongst themselves, and the ranks of police standing around smoking in side streets off Rustaveli seemed to dampen people’s spirits.

“We can’t believe in words alone, we need evidence, and until we get evidence we don’t have hope”, said 33-year-old Mariam, who lives in Germany but has returned to her home country to protest. Mariam’s words reflect the confusion and pessimism felt by many in Georgia since polling day, as the international response to Georgia’s elections fell short of deeming the GD government illegitimate, and the Central Election Commission’s partial vote recount made no different to the results. 

It remains unclear how the opposition intend to gather substantial evidence of electoral violations and fraud to attempt to overturn the election results, and no more details on this were revealed at Monday’s protest. 

“They are not stating their messages clearly enough”, said Mariam, as the rally was breaking up, “they are not on point. We don’t know what to believe. We know GD is not want we want, but is this opposition what we want?”

News of one small victory did begin to spread towards the end of the protest, as it became clear that Judge Vladimer Khuchua of Georgia’s Tetritskhari municipality in Kvemo Kartli had confirmed violations of voter secrecy in the local area, thereby annulling the results of 30 polling stations. 

Alongside non-stop demonstrations, Tsutskiridze laid out two further elements of the opposition’s long-awaited plan of action to prove election fraud. The first of these is ensuring all in Georgia understand the “manipulation”, “falsification”, “machination”, and “Russian war plan” implemented by the Georgian Dream party in their rigging of the election results to retain power. Secondly, the Strong Georgia representative continued, “the democratic, civilised world should not recognise the results of these elections”.

Leaflets bearing a QR code and the message “we want new elections. Our protests will grow until we win” were distributed through the crowd. Scanning the code took citizens to the Telegram group ‘Demand New Elections’, which it appears will be used going forward to send out details of daily protests.

This is the second action since Saturday’s elections organised by Georgia’s opposition who, despite running individually, have come together to make their case against GD and the rigged elections. 

“I am here to support the fight for democracy and freedom of the Georgian people” Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who was present at Monday’s rally, told online media Netgazeti. Thunberg marched in solidarity with Georgian citizens from Rustaveli Avenue to Baratashvili Bridge, and then on to Tbilisi’s Public Service Hall on the right bank of the Kura River, a major traffic artery. The march wrapped up in Marjanishvili Square around 10:30pm.

Georgia’s opposition framed the October 26 elections as a referendum on Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic future, which would be jeopardised should the increasingly autocratic and pro-Russian Georgian Dream party retain power. 

Now that this is reality, at least for now, opposition leaders fear Georgia will be prevented from taking up a seat at the EU’s table. 

“If GD retains power it absolutely means the end of Georgia’s European future and maybe even the end of Georgia’s physical existence as a country”, Coalition for Change leader Marika Mikiashvili told bne IntelliNews the day after the elections.