Georgia’s ruling party is leading in a pivotal parliamentary election widely seen as a make-or-break vote for the country’s long-held aspiration for EU membership.

Early official results, with 70% of precincts counted, showed the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party had won 53% of the vote, the electoral commission said.

But a united block of pro-western opposition parties have also declared victory, claiming they had clinched a collective majority, setting the stage for a confrontation over the future of the Caucasus country.

Voters in the country of almost 4 million people on Saturday headed to the polls in a watershed election to decide whether the increasingly authoritarian GD party, which has been in power since 2012 and steered the country into a conservative course away from the west and closer to Russia, secures another four-year term.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the shadowy billionaire founder of GD, claimed victory shortly after polls closed, in what has been called the most consequential election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“It is a rare case in the world that the same party achieves such success in such a difficult situation – this is a good indicator of the talent of the Georgian people,” Ivanishvili, widely considered to be the country’s most powerful figure, said.

If the central election projection holds, GD will secure a parliamentary majority, thwarting the opposition’s hopes for a pro-western coalition of four blocs and effectively stalling the country’s aspirations for EU integration.

Rival exit polls offered starkly different projections: three indicated the opposition would secure a majority, while another predicted a comfortable win for the ruling GD party.

Exit polls by the pro-opposition Formula and Mtavari Arkhi channels showed big gains for pro-western opposition parties, which they suggested would be able to form a majority together in the 150-seat parliament. An exit poll by the Georgian Dream-supporting Imedi TV channel said the ruling party would win a majority of 56%.

“The exit polls are showing an impressive 10% margin of victory for the opposition. We believe the Georgian public has voted clearly for a future at the heart of Europe and no amount of posturing will change that,” said Tinatin Bokuchava, leader of the biggest opposition party, United National Movement (UNM), urging the GD party to step down.

For the past three decades, Georgia has maintained strong pro-western aspirations, with polls showing up to 80% of its people favour joining the EU. In recent years, however, the government, led by the populist GD party, has increasingly shifted away from the west in favour of Russia, showing reluctance to condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

Many expected that GD would become the biggest party yet might fall short of a majority and struggle to form a government, with all other blocs refusing to collaborate with it.

The ruling GD was facing an unprecedented union of four pro-western opposition forces which had vowed to form a coalition government to oust it from power and put Georgia back on track to join the EU.

The biggest opposition force is the centre-right UNM, a party founded by Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president who is in prison on charges of abuse of power which his allies say are politically motivated.

Opposition exit polls predicted the UNM party would come second, followed by the Coalition for Change, an alliance that brings together several parties led by former UNM leaders.

The results will be closely monitored in Moscow and Brussels, with the EU saying the vote would shape Tbilisi’s prospects of joining the bloc.

GD has run its campaign on accusations that the pro-western opposition was trying to pull Georgia into a Ukraine-style conflict. In 2008, Georgia fought a war with Russia that lasted five days but left deep scars, and the invasion of Ukraine has left some in the country wary of the possible consequences of provoking Russia by moving closer to the west.

The party has also been accused by critics of plans to move the country in an authoritarian direction after Ivanishvili vowed to ban all the leading opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers if his party was re-elected.

“The government is openly pledging to transform Georgia into a one-party state – a move unprecedented in modern Georgian history,” said Tina Khidasheli, chair of the non-governmental organisation Civic Idea and a former defence minister.

Outside polling stations in central Tbilisi some voters echoed this sentiment.

“This is the most important day in our modern history. The situation is very dangerous,” said Mariam Khvedelidze, a 23-year-old student who voted for Save Georgia, an opposition bloc centred on UNM.

Support for the pro-western opposition groups generally comes from urban and younger voters, who envision their political future with the EU.

“Our democracy and future in Europe is at stake. We can not become puppets of the Kremlin,” Khvedelidze added.

But other Georgians said they had voted for the ruling party, believing it was the only force that could keep the country out of war with Russia.

“Right now, we need stability and friendly relations with Moscow,” said Elene Kiknadze, a 74-year-old woman. Voting for GD, she said, would also ensure Georgia would keep its “traditions”, referring to its conservative values, including opposition to rights for LGBTQ+ people. “Let Europe have their freedoms. We don’t need gay parades in this country,” she added.

The ruling Georgian government, aligned with the deeply conservative and influential Orthodox church, has sought to galvanise anti-liberal sentiments by campaigning on “family values” and criticising what it portrays as western excesses.

In the summer, the parliament passed legislation imposing sweeping restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights, a move critics say mirrors laws enacted in neighbouring Russia, where authorities have implemented a series of repressive measures against sexual minorities.

Georgia’s notoriously divided opposition has attempted to unite by forming four pro-European blocs, which have all endorsed the Georgian charter, an initiative proposed by the country’s pro-western president, Salome Zourabichvili, urging them to prevent GD from forming a coalition and remaining in power.

Zourabichvili, whose role is largely ceremonial, wrote on X on Saturday: “European Georgian is winning by 52%.”

The EU granted Georgia candidate membership status last year but has put its application on hold in response to a controversial “foreign agents” bill which was passed in May, requiring media and NGOs receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence”.

The bill, which triggered weeks of mass protests in the spring, has been labelled a “Russian law” by critics, who liken it to legislation introduced by the Kremlin a decade earlier to silence political dissent in the media and elsewhere.

Independent NGOs have warned that GD will attempt to undermine the parliamentary elections, relying on their “administrative resources” – an umbrella term that includes pressing state employees to vote and offering cash handouts to mostly rural voters.

On Saturday morning, several videos circulated online appearing to show ballot stuffing and voter intimidation at various polling stations across Georgia.

“Bidzina Ivanishvili’s thugs are desperate to cling on to power and will resort to anything to subvert the election process,” Bokuchava, the UNM leader, said as voting was under way.

The opposition has warned that the ruling party may attempt to manipulate the results, which could trigger mass protests, potentially followed by a harsh police crackdown.

“I certainly don’t expect Georgians to tolerate electoral fraud. People won’t stand by as their future is taken from them,” Bokuchava said.