TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Georgia's governing party, which has pursued both closer ties with the West and improved relations with Russia, was strongly in the lead Sunday after votes for its parliamentary election were counted from more than 80 percent of the country's precincts.
The national elections commission said the Georgian Dream party, which has been in power since 2012, had tallied 49 percent of the votes for the seats chosen by proportional representation. The opposition United National Movement, which is also pro-Western, had 26 percent support.
Regardless of the election's outcome, the former Soviet republic appears determined to integrate more closely with the West, including keeping alive distant hopes of joining the European Union and NATO.
Of the 150 seats in Georgia's parliament, 77 are chosen by national party list. Final results for the 73 seats contested in single districts have not been announced, but preliminary counting suggested more than 50 of them may have to go to a second round of voting because no candidate exceeded 50 percent support.
Parties must get at least 5 percent of the national vote to obtain proportionally distributed seats. The pro-Russian Alliance of Patriots grouping was hovering near that barrier in the partial count.
In all, 25 parties or groups competed for the 77 party-list seats, while more than 800 candidates ran for the single-district seats.
"These elections are a very important step forward toward reinforcing Georgia's image as a democratic European state," Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said after casting his ballot.
Still, the campaign for Saturday's voting had been unsettled by some violence: the bombing of a prominent opposition member's car and shots fired at a campaign rally for another candidate. On election day, about 100 men stormed a polling station, throwing rocks. Police claimed the assailants were affiliated with the main opposition party.
Despite the violence "our overall conclusions are that these elections were competitive and well-administered and fundamental freedoms were generally respected," said Ignacio Sanchez Armor, leader of the short-term observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.