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Police Tbilisi have fired water cannons at crowds protesting against the results of last week's parliamentary election, the BBC reported.

Thousands of people gathered outside the Central Election Commission to demand a new vote, after accusing the governing party of rigging the poll. The Georgian Dream party has denied the accusations of fraud.

Georgian Dream, which was founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili and has been in power since 2012, secured over 48% of votes in the 31 October election. The victory gives the party the right to form the country's next government.

But the thousands of protesters who marched in Tbilisi rejected the result and called for the resignation of both the police chief and the election commission. The protesters and the country's main opposition parties accuse the ruling party and its supporters of electoral fraud and voter intimidation. Eight opposition parties have already said they would boycott parliament over the results of the vote, Reuters news agency reports.

International election observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) noted that "pervasive allegations of pressure on voters and blurring of the line between the ruling party and the state reduced public confidence in some aspects of the process".

However, they also added that the vote had been competitive and that "overall, fundamental freedoms were respected".