Massive win for Saakashvili in Georgia, exit polls say

May 21, 2008, 17:08 GMT

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and his wife Sandra Roelofs (R) leave a polling booth during parliamentary elections in Tbilisi, Georgia, 21 May 2008. EPA/ZURAB KURTSIKIDZE

Tbilisi - Exit polls gave a massive win to a political party headed by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Wednesday, setting the stage for opposition claims of vote fraud.

Saakashvili's United Nation Movement received 63 per cent of the popular vote in national polling, exit polls said.

The president's closest rival, the United Opposition group, would receive approximately 15 per cent of ballots cast, the exit polls found.

The poll numbers if borne out by official counts would allow the UNM and Saakashvili to dominate the country's politics and make decisions at will, to include changing the constitution.

Two other small political players appeared on track to place MPs in parliament - a party led by television announcer Georgy Targamadze with 9 per cent, and the Labour Party with slightly more than 5 per cent.

Georgians voted for a new parliament against a background of accusations of vote fraud allegedly committed by President Mikhail Saakashvili and his allies, and a firefight in a border region disputed between Tbilisi and the Kremlin.

The vote was the first legislative referendum faced by the Saakashvili-led party since winning a majority in Georgia's first- ever open parliamentary contest after the pro-democracy Rose Revolution five years ago.

Georgians cast their ballots four months after Saakashvili, 40, won by 54 per cent in snap elections called in the wake of violence between police and opposition protesters blaming the government for corruption, unemployment and curbing freedoms.

More than 4,500 observers were monitoring the elections Wednesday. The poll was widely seen as a litmus test for the US-educated Saakashvili's credentials with the West as the Georgian leader is pushing to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and curry support in longstanding disputes with Moscow.

'I want everybody to understand ... the international community is watching these elections closely,' Saakashvili told journalists after casting his ballot in the capital Tbilisi on Wednesday.

'Georgia remains in a very difficult international situation now. Under such pressure and blackmail, holding an organized and calm election will be equivalent to Georgia's democracy passing an important test,' he said in apparent reference to difficulties with neighbouring Russia, news agency Interfax reported.

But only a few hours into voting the nine-party opposition coalition alleged 'grave violations' at over 12 polling stations and promised over 100,000 protesters would take to the streets.

A Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter observed a substantial and sometimes unconcealed police presence near polling stations and in public areas in the provincial city Gori.

Georgian television carried images of election officials and opposition representatives in provincial villages fighting with fists as a result of an election procedure dispute.

Opposition leader David Gamkrelidze warned the government, 'If they don't want a rebellion of the people and civil war, they must stop the mass falsifications at the regional polls.'

'We will hold a huge rally tonight and 100,000 people will come out and tell the true election results,' promised opposition bloc leader Levan Gachechiladze after voting Wednesday.

Violence struck near the villages Gali and Zugdidi, on the border of Georgia and its renegade province Abkahzia, when unknown persons opened fire on local citizens.

Georgian television carried images of soldiers returning fire at unknown assailants with automatic rifles and machineguns. One woman was shown with a gunshot wound to her back.

Abkhazian troops had fired upon ethnic Georgians returning to Georgian territory to vote, according to the news reports. They Georgia government claimed the attackers used automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades to take a pair of buses carrying voters.

Saakashvili has said the situation was close to war two weeks ago, and Russia has increased its peacekeeping troops in the autonomous regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to the maximum under a 1994 ceasefire that ended civil war.

The Interior Ministry in Tbilisi said several people were injured in at least two explosions on buses. A media consultant employed by the Saakashvili administration claimed the blasts were part of an Abkhazian attempt to undermine the elections.

The mountainous former Soviet republic of Georgia has been at the heart of a regional struggle for influence between the United States and neighbouring Russia since it gained its independence in 1991. Stretching south-east from the Black Sea, Georgia straddles a key pipeline for Caspian gas to Europe.

Last year, Saakashvili oversaw soaring gross domestic product of 12 per cent and is credited with economic reforms.

The 3.4 million registered voters are expected to mostly support Saakashvili's party, the National Movement Democrats (NMD), but if the voters decide to punish the NMD even a little it could lose its current two-thirds majority in the legislature and thus its ability to change the constitution.

Saakashvili in April lost a key ally when Prime Minister Nino Burjanadze, a woman widely seen in Georgia as a calming force, declared she would neither run for parliament nor serve any longer in the NMD. At her last briefing before resigning, Burjanadze called the elections 'a test of Georgia's democracy.'

Nationwide surveys are predicting a solid win for Saakashvili's party with the United Opposition Council trailing, according to a Greenburg Quinlan survey.

Analysts fear that Georgia's opposition could well act out its threats of post-election demonstrations against rigged voting leading to prolonged unrest.

'I wouldn't rule out the possibility of escalation in the aftermath because the votes of those dissatisfied will be barely counted. So, they will take to the streets again,' an analyst with the Moscow Carnegie, Alexei Malashenko, wrote in business daily Kommersant Wednesday.

Voter turnout was higher than in the snap January elections, CEC officials said. The first official results are expected one day after polls close at 8 pm (1600 GMT).