TBILISI, Georgia, Nov 26, (AP): The newly elected Georgian parliament opened its inaugural session Monday as opposition lawmakers and the president boycotted it and thousands of protesters, watched by riot police, rallied outside and accused the ruling party of rigging the vote under Russian influence. The Oct 26 election that kept the Georgian Dream party in power was widely seen as a referendum on the country’s effort to join the European Union.

Opposition parties refused to participate in the parliament's activities, and only 88 lawmakers, all Georgian Dream members, were in the hall as the 150-seat parliament held its first session. Nika Melia, leader of Coalition for Changes, vowed that the opposition "will do everything to defeat the so-called government, the self-proclaimed government.” "This is the fight between people fighting for freedom against people who are trying to entrench the deeply authoritarian regime," he said.

President Salome Zourabichvili, who has rejected the official results and refused to recognize the parliament’s legitimacy, didn’t attend the opening session. Zourabichvili, who holds the mostly ceremonial position, said on X the parliament is unconstitutional because of evidence of electoral fraud and her refusal to open the session as required by the constitution.

She has filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court, arguing that two fundamental principles guaranteed by the constitution - the secrecy of the vote and its universality - were violated. In a televised statement, Zourabichvili declared that "today the parliament of Georgia no longer exists” because Georgian Dream has "trampled the constitution.” "I feel sorry for all these parliamentarians who sat there today with frozen expressions, because they know they are the result of falsified elections, and they know they will be locked in this hall for several months or weeks, where none of them has any rights," she said.