Protesters in Georgia’s capital set up a tent camp on the main street and call for new elections

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Demonstrators in the capital of Georgia have set up tents on one of the city’s main thoroughfares and vowed Monday to stay there around the clock to demand new parliamentary elections in the country.

An election held in October kept the governing Georgian Dream party in power, but opponents say the vote was rigged.

Several large protests have been held since then and on Sunday demonstrators closed one of the avenues that leads into the center of Tbilisi, the capital.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream, established by a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.

Many Georgians viewed the October election as a referendum on the country’s effort to join the European Union. The bloc suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely in June after the country’s parliament passed a law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.