Thousands protest in Georgia against election results

Thousands of people protested outside Georgia's parliament in Tbilisi on Monday after the governing party won an election marked by reports of voting irregularities, prompting Western powers to call for investigations.

The protesters, some carrying anti-Russia banners, had viewed the parliamentary election as a crucial choice for the country's future. On one side, the Georgian Dream party has deepened ties with Russia, while the opposition is seeking to fast-track integration with Europe. Georgia has applied for EU membership but its candidate status was frozen over legislation on foreign agents.

The word "stolen" was projected onto the front of Soviet-era parliament building in Tbilisi, the South Caucasus country's capital, but there were no signs of clashes as police looked on.

Georgian Dream, which came to power in 2012, won nearly 54 per cent of the vote in Saturday's election, the election commission said.

The four main opposition parties that won seats in parliament said they did not recognise the results, and that they would boycott the chamber.

President Salome Zourabichvili had urged people to take to the streets after the results were announced.

"You did not lose the elections. Your vote was stolen, and they tried to steal your future as well," Zourabichvili told the crowd, draped in the flags of Georgia and the European Union.

"Together, peacefully, as we are today, we will defend what is ours: your constitutional right to have your vote respected."

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said they registered incidents of vote-buying, voter intimidation and ballot-stuffing that could have affected the outcome, but stopped short of saying the election was rigged.

Ana Korkia, a 28-year-old Tbilisi resident, said she had protested to "show European leaders that we are here and this election (result) is not our choice."

The election result poses a challenge to the European Union's ambition to expand by bringing in more former Soviet states.

NATO and the European Union called for a full investigation of what the Western military alliance called the "uneven playing field" in the election.

The United States was in talks with European partners on what would be an appropriate body to investigate reports of violations, said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Washington, which has issued sanctions and visa bans against ruling party officials and far-right activists in Georgia, could take action if the government does not heed calls to "walk back its anti-democratic actions and return to its Euro-Atlantic path," Miller said.

"We do not rule out further consequences if the Georgian government's direction does not change," he said, without spelling out any potential consequences.