Saakashvili Hails Poll Results, Warns Abashidze

Opposition Rebuffed in Georgian Polls

Saakashvili-backed party’s victory not a surprise.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose party swept a landslide victory, according to the exit polls of Sunday’s elections, said that “the recent parliamentary election was the most democratic and free one during the last ten years.”

He also gave a warning to the Adjarian president that Tbilisi will not tolerate “feudal-style lords any more.” Saakashvili announced that according to the preliminary information his party received that his party collected “twice as many votes in the Autonomous Republic” than Abashidze’s Revival Union Party.

The exit polls suggest that President Saakashvili’s National Movement-Democrats received 78.6% of the vote, while other parties failed to clear the 7% threshold necessary for securing seats in the Parliament.
If the exit polls prove correct, the ruling party will gain all the 150 mandates in the 235-seat Parliament. 75 seats are already occupied by the MPs elected in the single-mandate constituencies in last November’s disputed elections. While a remaining 10 deputies are holdover members from the Tbilisi-based Abkhaz government-in-exile.

According to the exit polls, the Rightist Opposition – Industrialists-New Rights election coalition, received up to 5% of the vote while the Labor Party’s 4.4%, Adjarian leader Aslan Abashidze’s party Revival Union’s 3.7%, newly created Freedom party’s (led by Georgia’s late President’s son Konstantine Gamsakhurdia) 3.6%, the Unity Party’s 1.6%, NDP-Traditionalists election alliance’s 1.4% and the Socialists party’s 0.5% rounded out the rest of the voting.

However, 20% of the voters polled refused to disclose their decisions to exit polls takers. The Central Election Commission will announce preliminary results of the elections on March 29. Observers suggest that the official results will not differ much from the unofficial polls.
After the polls, President Saakashvili convened a press conference and expressed regret regarding the “poor showing of the opposition parties” in the election.

“But it is not the government’s fault. For the first time in Georgia there was not even a single case of violence against the opposition parties during their campaigns, of course I do not mean Adjara in this regard. It was the most democratic and free election in Georgia in the past ten years,” Saakashvili said.

He downplayed fears that the landslide victory by the ruling party would create a one-party Parliament with no real opposition to balance the pro-government party in the legislative body. Saakashvili says that these “talks about a one-party Parliament are groundless.”

“Do not forget that 75 MPs have already been elected in the single-mandate constituencies. According to my calculations at least 45 of them represent the opposition parties, or similar political forces, which backed ex-President Shevardnadze,” President Saakashvili said.

“On the other hand we should remember that the ruling party itself represents a coalition of several parties,” which is made up by Saakashvili’s National Movement, Premier Zhvania’s Democrats, the Republican Party, and supporters of the Chairperson of the outgoing Parliament, Nino Burjanadze, “and we have witnessed several times that there are disagreements between them,” Saakadhvili noted.

He also said that the authorities are ready to cooperate with opposition parties to expose cases of violations during the elections. “We will appeal to the court and demand cancellation of election results in those precincts where vote-rigging took place,” he said.
 
President Saakashvili also said that his party won elections in defiant Adjarian Autonomy by “a big margin.”

Abashidze said he voted for peace.

“It happened for the first time in Adjara wherein the local ruling party [Aslan Abashidze’s Revival Union] received fewer votes than another party,” Saakashvili said.

He also warned the Adjarian authorities to disarm local paramilitary forces and obey the central government. 

“They have two options – to surrender arms, or I will disarm them. The second option will be very painful for them,” he added.

“We will not tolerate a feudal regime in Georgia any more,” he said, referring to the Adjarian Autonomy and its leaders.

Chairman of the Central Election Commission Zurab Tchiaberashvili said on March 28 that several cases of intimidation marred voting in Adjara; however Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who was sent to Adjara to oversee the situation on Election Day, said “no widespread violation has been reported” in the Autonomous Republic.

The local observers also reported on certain violations in Adjara, as well as in other regions of Georgia. On March 29, international observers from the OSCE and Council of Europe will present their preliminary findings concerning the Georgian polls, which were the third of their kind during the last five months.

The Central Election Commission had previously announced on March 28, that elections, which involved around 1.5 million of the 2.2 million registered voters in the country, would be valid.