Georgian opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili claimed victory in the country's presidential elections and vowed to root out corruption after an exit poll showed him with an overwhelming lead.
Saakashvili, the favorite among the six candidates on Sunday's ballot, was the driving force behind the peaceful demonstrations that brought down former President Eduard Shevardnadze in November in what became known as the "rose revolution."
After the polls closed Sunday, Georgian independent television station Rustavi-2 said its exit survey indicated that Saakashvili had won 85.8 percent of the vote. Preliminary results weren't expected until yesterday, but Saakashvili nevertheless claimed victory.
"We've got a very important mandate from our population to clean up the country, to consolidate power here, to make it official, to make it investment friendly, to make it peaceful and prosperous," he said.
Saakashvili, a 36-year-old U.S.-educated lawyer, has pledged to take a hard line against corruption and to work to restore the country's economy, which largely collapsed in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. Georgia was also ripped by two wars with separatist regions in the 1990s, ransom kidnappings became widespread and relations with its giant neighbor Russia deteriorated.
Shevardnadze had stepped down six weeks ago in the face of massive protests over parliamentary election fraud.
Lining up to vote in Tbilisi, the crumbling capital of the impoverished country, voters expressed optimism and pro-Saakashvili leanings. Some carried roses to the polling stations in commemoration of the flowers distributed to police by anti-Shevardnadze protesters in November as a sign of their peaceful intent.
"For us, it's a real holiday to use our voices to help the country," said Anastasia Kazmina, in her 60s, one of the voters who came in the freezing dawn to cast her ballot early.
The voting was closely watched by more than 500 international observers to ensure the violations and confusions of the Nov. 2 parliamentary elections didn't recur.
"It was, as far as I can tell, a normal election," said USAmbassador Richard Miles. "People voted freely."
About 1.7 million voters were registered ahead of the election, but Georgia has no central database of who lives in the country, so people who weren't on the lists were allowed to register on the day of voting. It was not clear how many people took advantage of that, but Central Elections Commission head Zurab Chiaberashvili said turnout totaled 1.7 million people.
Ultraviolet ink was placed on a finger of each voter and official polling station doors scanned people entering with black lights to ensure that no one was trying to vote more than once.
But aside from that technical innovation, the rest of the voting procedure was primitive. Voters placed their filled-in ballots in envelopes and dropped them into clear plastic boxes.
Final tabulation of the results was not expected until tomorrow.
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Russia only wishes Georgia success in its difficult struggle
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