Anti-Saakashvili Candidate Claims Victory in Georgia Vote
Giorgi Margvelashvili with his daughter in Tbilisi, Oct. 27, 2013
© RIA Novosti. Alexey Kudenko
23:36 27/10/2013
Originally Published at 22:22
Tags: elections, United National Movement (UNM), Georgian Dream, Davit
Bakradze, Giorgi Margvelashvili, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Mikheil
Saakashvili, Tbilisi, Georgia
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TBILISI/MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti) – An opponent of outgoing
president Mikheil Saakashvili claimed victory in Georgian presidential
elections Sunday just hours after voting stations closed in the former
Soviet nation on Russia’s southern border.
Initial exit polls gave Giorgi Margvelashvili, from the
anti-Saakashvili Georgian Dream party, about 65 percent of the vote in
an election that marks the end of a decade in power for Saakashvili.
`I want to thank everyone who supported me,’ Margvelashvili said
outside his party headquarters in Tbilisi on Sunday evening where his
supporters had already taken to the streets to celebrate his win.
`Thanks to the Prime Minister who facilitated today’s victory.’
Margvelashvili is a close ally of Georgian Prime Minister and
billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who led Georgian Dream to a crushing
victory over Saakashvili’s United National Movement in parliamentary
polls in 2012.
Twenty three candidates took part in Sunday’s elections in the South
Caucasus nation, but the presidential position is less powerful than
it was under Saakashvili after laws passed earlier this year diluted
presidential powers.
Margvelashvili’s main rival, Davit Bakradze of United National
Movement, was given about 20 percent of the vote by exit polls. He
said shortly after polling stations closed that the exit polls
provided a `clear picture’ and that he was prepared to work with the
country’s new president.
Both front-runners in the election pledged to continue policies of
integration with the European Union and NATO, and have indicated a
willingness to improve ties with Russia, which soured badly under
Saakashvili.
Turnout among the country’s 3.5 million registered voters was 46.6
percent, according to the country’s election commission.
Outgoing President Saakashvili said on Sunday evening that Georgian
voters had `spoken’ and called on his supporters to respect the
election result.
A Columbia Law School graduate, Saakashvili enjoyed broad public
support early in his presidency after he swept to power following
Georgia’s 2003 “Rose Revolution” and carried through successful
institutional reforms. But a disastruous defeat in a brief war with
Russia in 2008 contributed to a later precipitous drop in his approval
ratings.
Saakashvili’s bitter political rival, Ivanishvili, is a secretive
tycoon whose fortune Forbes magazine puts at $.5.5 billion, making him
Georgia’s richest man. Ivanishvili, who became prime minister last
October, has pledged to quit politics after the presidential vote, but
has yet to name a successor.
Recast throughout, with latest updates and quote from Saakashvili