Opinion: Putin just won another victory – yet the West still has its head in the sand

I’ll cut straight to the chase: Georgia, one of the fault-line post-Soviet states caught between the West and Russia, is on a fast-track to dictatorship and subjugation by Moscow. The Putin-friendly Georgian Dream (GD) Party “triumphed” in this weekend’s parliamentary elections, with 53.93 per cent of the popular vote. It was a landslide marred by credible allegations of voter fraud – irregularities so pervasive that Georgia’s president, Salome Zourabichvili, has called them a “Russian special operation”. One global anti-corruption watchdog showcased rampant fraud in rural areas – in some neighbourhoods, groups of men were spotted voting in several precincts and the Georgian Dream’s vote tally soared from 50-60 per cent to 80-90 per cent. Transparency International Georgia produced more than 360 photographs and video recordings documenting electoral violation.