You're reading: CEC: Margvelashvili wins presidential elections in Georgia

Tbilisi - The candidate of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition Giorgi Margvelashvili is winning a landslide victory in the Sunday presidential elections, press secretary of the Georgian Central Elections Committee (CEC) Eka Azarashivli said after 99.7% of the ballots were counted. 

“These are practically final CEC figures and nothing will change it. Based on voting results, Margvelashvili garnered 62.12% of the vote,” she said.

The turnout in the Sunday elections was 46%. Georgia does not have a minimum required turnout.

In order to win a presidential candidate has to collect a 50%+1 votes.

Georgia has 3,537,719 registered voters. Voting was organized at 3,741 polling stations, 52 of them in almost 40 foreign countries. There were no polling stations in Russia, even though it is home to a large Georgian community, due to the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The results of several exit polls were announced earlier. According to them, Margvelashvili collected 65%-68% of the vote with his closest rival Bakradze garnering 17%-22% of the vote.

Bakradze already congratulated Margvelashvili on his victory.