By Felix Mild and Lucy Papachristou

TBILISI (Reuters) -Georgians voted on Saturday in a parliamentary election depicted by either side as an existential battle that may decide whether or not the nation integrates carefully with the West or leans again in the direction of Russia.

The vote pits the ruling Georgian Dream social gathering, in energy since 2012, in opposition to 4 predominant blocs representing the pro-Western opposition. Polls opened at 0400 GMT and can shut at 1600 GMT, with some 3.5 million Georgians eligible to forged ballots.

Georgian Dream’s reclusive billionaire founder and ex-prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, mentioned the election was “a very simple choice.

“Both we elect a authorities that serves you, the Georgian individuals…or we elect an agent of a international nation that may solely fulfil the duties of a international nation,” Ivanishvili, considered to be the country’s main powerbroker, said as he cast his vote in Tbilisi on Saturday.

“This present day will decide Georgia’s future,” President Salome Zourabichvili, a Georgian Dream critic whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said after she voted in the capital.

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

Georgia, which lost swathes 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 states to emerge from the Soviet Union.

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

Media sympathetic to the opposing sides have published rival polls, with pro-opposition broadcasters forecasting Georgian Dream will lose its majority, and those supporting the ruling party predicting a landslide victory with its best showing ever.

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

The authorities used force to disperse demonstrations this year against a law requiring groups that receive funding from abroad to register as foreign agents, which the opposition and the West called a Russian-inspired measure to stifle dissent.

‘GLOBAL WAR PARTY’

Ivanishvili has cast Saturday’s election as an existential fight to prevent what he calls a “World Struggle Celebration” in the West from pushing Tbilisi into direct conflict with Moscow.

“Proper now, some individuals do not perceive the hazard they could face if we’re defeated. However we’ll attempt our greatest to win and present the individuals the proper path,” Georgian Dream activist Sandro Dvalishvili told Reuters.

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

Opposition parties and President Zourabichvili accuse Georgian Dream of buying votes and intimidating voters, which it denies.

Local media reported several incidents of physical violence outside polling stations, as well as an instance of ballot stuffing in the southern town of Marneuli, which led to the precinct’s results being declared invalid.

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

“Russian imperialism’s starvation is aware of no bounds. And that’s why we want robust allies. And people robust allies are within the European Union,” mentioned Nana Malashkhia, a former civil servant who shot to fame final 12 months after being filmed waving an EU flag whereas being blasted with a police water cannon at a protest. She is now operating for parliament.

The EU granted Georgia candidate membership standing final 12 months however has put its software on maintain in response to what it says is backsliding on democracy below Georgian Dream.

The 4 predominant opposition events purpose to kind a coalition authorities to oust Georgian Dream from energy and put Georgia again on monitor to hitch the EU.