Georgian President's allies rout opposition

Georgians handed President Mikhail Saakashvili's allies a resounding victory in a weekend parliamentary election, preliminary results showed yesterday, wiping out any significant opposition to his reform plans.

The Central Election Commission said Saakashvili's National Movement - Democrats bloc won 75 per cent of Sunday's vote, with around 20 per cent of votes counted. Just one opposition party was likely to cross a seven per cent hurdle to enter parliament.

The vote, a rerun of a November poll seen as rigged, gives Mr Saakashvili carte blanche to press ahead with attempts to fight corruption, unify a riven country and revive state finances but it also means legislation will face little scrutiny.

Mr Saakashvili, leader of a bloodless revolution last year that ousted veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze, also eroded support for Aslan Abashidze, a strongman leader in the wayward Adzhara region, whose Revival Party was unlikely to win any seats.

"Based on yesterday's poll in Adzhara I can tell you that the only chance of political survival for the (local) government is to change their attitude and be much more democratic," said Matyas Eorsi, head of the European Parliament election monitors.

"People are tired of living under a dictatorial regime," said Emiran, 53, a driver in the Adzharan port of Batumi.

Observers said the vote broadly represented the people's will, although some voters in Adzhara - which came close to bloodshed this month after Abashidze supporters fired over Mr Saakashvili's car - had been intimidated during the run-up.

"It occurred to me last time I was here (in November) that if ballot stuffing had been selected by the Olympic Committee, then Georgia would have won at least a silver medal," Bruce George, a coordinator for observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told a news conference.

"Of course there was election fraud, especially in some parts of the country where it appears to be in the genes, but generally speaking there was not massive fraud."

Despite tension in Adzhara on the Turkish border, voting remained peaceful in the volatile Caucasus nation.

The United States, which backs Saakashvili, 36, is keen to see a stable Georgia as the former Soviet republic lies on the route of a Western oil pipeline due to start pumping Caspian oil to the Mediterranean next year without the need to cross Russia.

US Ambassador Richard Miles expressed concern on Sunday at the likely lack of a parliamentary opposition among the 150 seats that were contested in the 235-seat chamber. The other 85 seats were not nullified after the November vote.