Georgia votes in tense parliamentary polls
TBILISI (AFP) — Georgians voted Wednesday in parliamentary elections seen as a test of the pro-Western government's democratic credentials at a time of dangerously fraught tensions with neighbouring Russia.
The election, which polls forecast will be won by President Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement, opened under sunny skies in the strategic ex-Soviet republic's ancient capital Tbilisi.
But dark political clouds gathered over this mountainous country of just under five million people as the election stoked internal tensions and a row over Russia's support for separatist rebels in two regions gathered pace.
At a polling station next to Tbilisi's Soviet-era parliament building, Anya, 56, said she had voted for Saakashvili's party "because I believe that he is doing what's best for our country."
But opposition supporters have already denounced the vote as a fraud.
"I voted for the opposition, but it doesn't matter because they are going to throw out my vote anyway," Vano Zurabishvili, 34, said after casting his ballot. "We have no democracy in this country."
Diplomats and analysts have warned that the vote will have to be conducted fairly if Georgia is to get Western support in a row over two separatist regions backed by Russia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
On the eve of the vote, Saakashvili made an appeal for national unity, saying Russia would take advantage of any unrest.
"We have to realise how important tomorrow's elections are. Our enemy wants tomorrow's elections to turn into turmoil and internal confrontation," he said in a televised address.
Tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi soared ahead of the election, with Saakashvili saying earlier this month that the two countries had come close to war, and Russia sending extra troops to Abkhazia.
Last week a senior Georgian minister said that war in Abkhazia had only been avoided thanks to a phone call by France's foreign minister to his Russian counterpart.
Georgia's opposition has already called its supporters to take the the streets Wednesday night. Opposition leader Levan Gachechiladze told AFP he would call on supporters to force their way into the electoral commission office if authorities "do not release the real results of the vote."
"The people have every right to protect their votes," he said.
The main Western election monitoring body, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has sent 550 observers to monitor the polling and is to deliver a verdict Thursday.
A country of soaring mountain peaks, wine and ancient churches, Georgia has suffered through civil wars, the breakaway of two regions and sustained political turmoil since gaining independence with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Saakashvili has won praise for economic reforms since coming to power in 2004 after the peaceful Rose Revolution and supporters describe his government as a beacon of democracy in the often corrupt and authoritarian former Soviet Union.
But his goal of joining NATO has set him sharply at odds with Russia, which sees enlargement of the alliance as encroachment on its sphere of influence.
And Georgia's democratic reputation was tarnished last November when Saakashvili sent riot police to suppress an opposition protest, imposed a brief period of emergency rule and shut down a critical television station.
His subsequent re-election in a snap presidential vote this January was also marred by opposition allegations of fraud.
Saakashvili's United National Movement party was forecast to win the election with 43 percent of the vote, according to a survey released Monday by the Washington-based institute Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.
The newly formed Christian Democratic Movement was in second place with 14 percent of votes, according to the survey of 1,200 Georgians carried out last week. Gachechiladze's United Opposition Council was in third place at 11 percent.
Polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0400 GMT) and were due to close at 8:00 pm (1600 GMT). About 3.4 million people are registered to vote.
