TBILISI – Georgia state prosecutors said on Wednesday they had launched an investigation into opposition allegations of possible falsification in the weekend parliamentary elections in which the ruling Georgian Dream was declared to have won.

Official results gave Georgian Dream, a party that has deepened its ties with Russia, 54% of the vote and a clear majority in parliament after Saturday’s vote. But opposition politicians have said they will boycott the chamber in protest of a result they considered illegitimate.

The Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that it had summoned Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili to testify on Thursday, a government critic who has repeatedly said the vote count was falsified but has provided no evidence of this.

Zourabichvili and other opposition figures had presented the vote as a crucial moment in Georgia’s history, where the country was choosing between European Union integration with the opposition or a continued drift towards Russia under the Georgian Dream.

Georgia does not have diplomatic relations with Russia and Georgian Dream, which says it wants the South Caucasus country to one day join the EU, says it does not want the nation to be dragged into another conflict with Moscow, which won it a brief war in 2008.

The Prosecutor’s Office said the investigation was opened at the request of the Georgia electoral commission, which stated that the vote was free and fair.

Georgian media reported Tuesday that the electoral commission had called for an investigation into what it called “baseless criticism” of the election.

Zourabichvili told Reuters on Monday that Georgian Dream had used a Russian “methodology” to falsify the election result, citing two exit polls that pointed to an opposition victory.

Election observers, including the 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), have said the vote was marked by incidents of voter intimidation, bribery and vote manipulation that could have impacted the result, but They didn’t get to call it, it’s rigged.

The Kremlin has denied accusations of interference and accused the West of trying to improperly influence the outcome of the vote. REUTERS