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TBILISI - Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili won a snap presidential election outright with 52.8 per cent of the vote, election officials said on Sunday.
Less than 50 per cent would have forced him into a second-round runoff vote. Officials said votes at a handful of overseas polling stations remained to be counted but were unlikely to affect the final tally.
Thousands of protesters gathered in the capital to accuse Saakashvili of rigging the election.
But Western observers said the Saturday vote had been broadly fair, making it harder for the opposition to challenge the result. The United States urged them to respect the observers' verdict.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said the vote had been marred by "blatant pressure" on the opposition and called the observers' report "hasty" and "superficial".
Moscow's view is unlikely to influence developments in Georgia, as most of the opposition there treat Russia with suspicion and back Saakashvili's pro-Western policies.
Georgia lies on the route of a major pipeline pumping oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe and is the scene of a tussle for influence between Russia and the United States.
Saakashvili shocked his Western allies in November by ordering police to fire tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters.
"I perceive this election as a viable expression of the free choice of the Georgian people, but the future holds immense challenges," said Alcee L. Hastings, a leader of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) observer mission.
The result represents a huge drop in popularity for 40-year-old Saakashvili, who enjoyed the support of about 90 per cent of the population when he was elected to his first term.
His critics say his reforms - lauded by the West - have ignored the poor, and call him an autocrat who pays only lip service to democratic freedoms.
Saakashvili's vote tally was, nevertheless, almost twice that of his nearest challenger, 43-year-old wine producer Levan Gachechiladze.
Gachechiladze said he was the rightful winner and demanded the election be annulled. Up to 7,000 of his supporters rallied in the snow on the banks of the river Mtkvari which winds its way through Tbilisi.
"Mikhail Saakashvili, you cannot defeat the Georgian people," he said, his hand clenched in a fist.
Protesters chanted "Georgia, Georgia" and held their index fingers up to represent the number one - Gachechiladze's number on the ballot paper.
He urged supporters to hold rolling protests from Jan. 8, after Georgian Orthodox Christmas.
Saakashvili has steered Georgia towards Nato membership, angering former colonial master Russia which supports two separatist regions of Georgia.
The OSCE report said the election was the first truly competitive contest since Georgia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Past elections in Georgia have either been completely one-sided or deemed unfair.
But observers also said there were serious shortcomings, with the campaign skewed in Saakashvili's favour.
Analysts said that Saakashvili was likely to emerge weakened from the election.
"He won't be as radical as he was previously," said Archil Gegeshidze, Senior Fellow at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. "The pace of economic reforms will slow down."
- REUTERS
