TBILISI, Georgia — The governing party in Georgia retained power with a decisive victory in the country’s parliamentary election, according to a nearly complete vote count released on Sunday.

With more than 99 percent of votes counted, the governing Georgian Dream party, which is pro-Western but favors closer ties with Russia, had 49 percent of the vote, while the opposition United National Movement was running a distant second with 27 percent. Smaller parties received the remainder of the votes.

Georgia, a former Soviet state in the Caucasus region, hopes to join the European Union and NATO one day, though Russia strongly opposes both moves. The country is crisscrossed by strategically important oil and gas pipelines, and one-fifth of its territory remains under the control of pro-Russian separatists after a short war with Russia in 2008.

Georgia is one of the few former Soviet states to evolve into a multiparty democracy, though its political stability has been fragile. The authorities were keen to have the latest election, held on Saturday, be accepted as free and fair, despite some problems. Violence related to the vote ranged from rock-throwing at polling stations to an apparent attempt to kill an opposition lawmaker with a car bomb.