Georgia’s top election official, Giorgi Kalandarishvili, was about to put his signature on the final results of the nation’s recent parliamentary vote, when a dissenting colleague walked across the hall and splashed black paint in his face.

“You are a black stain, that’s what you are,” said Davit Kirtadze, political opposition’s representative on the Central Election Commission, as he opened a disposable coffee cup and threw paint at Kalandarishvili, the commission’s chairman.

The meeting, which took place three weeks after the fiercely disputed parliamentary vote October 26, swiftly descended into chaos. Aides had to pull apart brawling members of the commission. With paint splattered all over his face and shirt, Kalandarishvili called a pause to the proceedings and rushed out of the room.

The black paint symbolized marker pen stains that bled through ballot papers on the election day, resulting in mass compromising of the confidentiality of voters’ choices. Opposition groups and independent observers insist that the leaked ink was a deliberate element in a scheme of vote-manipulation that the incumbent Georgian Dream party allegedly used to claim electoral victory and prolong its rule by another four years.

Kalandarishvili eventually resumed the meeting despite objections from dissenting CEC members, as well as protests raging outside the commission’s premises. Wearing fresh clothes and an eye patch, Kalandarishvili went ahead and certified the election that left Georgian Dream in the driver’s seat.

But the election process is far from over as far the opposition and a large part of Georgian society is concerned. A fight is underway in Georgian courts and in the streets to challenge continued rule of Georgian Dream – a now deeply entrenched governing elite built around the controversial persona of eccentric billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.

The victory of the incumbent force, whose popularity has been decreasing based on opinion polls and by the party’s own admission, initially left change-seeking voters in the funk, while opposition parties scrambled to formulate a response to the official results, which independent polling analysts say defied statistical logic.

But after initial snafus, many Georgians are becoming more active in efforts to protect the concept of election integrity, as well as keep Georgia’s European Union accession hopes alive. The increasingly isolationist and self-serving establishment is accused of comprising both concepts to extend its rule.

Opposition parties began rallying supporters to protest and engage in acts of civil disobedience. Protesters have been blocking streets in capital Tbilisi, while students and professors have staged sit-ins in schools. Two days after paint-splattered Kalandarishvili put his signature on the final results, the authorities sent riot police to Tbilisi State University, the nation’s oldest and most prominent university, to crack down on a peaceful sit-in outside the central building.

On the same night, the nation’s maverick president, Salome Zourabichvili, went to the Constitutional Court to challenge election results. In her complaint, the president argued that the omnipresent stains on the back of ballots breached Georgians’ constitutional right of voter secrecy and that the government deliberately prevented many foreign-based Georgians from voting. Opposition parties also appealed to the high court with similar complaints.

These complaints are largely based on the reports of local observers, who say that the location of notorious black stains on the back of ballots easily exposed voters’ choices and allowed Georgian Dream, which had cameras installed and representatives present at all polling stations, to keep track and interfere with voting patterns.

Violations were documented by international observers as well. European and American observers documented numerous irregularities during the October 26 election, including cases of ballot-stuffing, violent incidents in select precincts, voter impersonation and vote-buying, and the most visually evident issue – the violation of voter secrecy.

Georgian Dream says that its critics are making a mountain out of a molehill and that the current clamor is about its opponents being sore losers. Nevertheless, the party finds itself in something of a diplomatic quarantine. Most European leaders and Washington refused to congratulate Georgian Dream on its claimed victory and backed ongoing calls to investigate electoral violations.

Unfazed by such ostracism, Georgian Dream is getting ready to re-inaugurate itself as the ruling force. Party’s founder and honorary chairman Ivanishvili proposed that the new parliament extend the terms of his loyalists, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili.

There will not be anyone in the assembly to vote against the nominations – opposition parties are boycotting parliament. Meanwhile, Georgian Dream members have proven obedient to Ivanishvili’s wishes during the party’s 14-year run in power.

Meanwhile, the Georgian Orthodox Church, often described as the country’s most respected institution, issued a statement congratulating Georgian Dream on its “re-election,” while tacitly urging believers to accept the results and rally around the government.

Giorgi Lomsadze