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Georgia Challenger Draws Strong Support, Exit Poll Shows Georgia Challenger Draws Strong Support, Exit Poll Shows
(35 minutes later)
KARALETI, Georgia — Exit polls in Georgia’s hotly contested parliamentary election on Monday suggested that a new party headed by the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili had managed to edge out the party of Georgia’s larger-than-life president, Mikheil Saakashvili.   TBILISI, Georgia — Exit polls in Georgia’s hotly contested parliamentary race suggested on Monday that a party backed by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili has edged out the party headed by Georgia’s larger-than-life president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
A poll by Edison Research reported on Georgian television showed that Georgian Dream, Mr. Ivanishvili’s party, had probably  won more than half of the popular vote. A second exit poll suggested that the parties were tied. It was a sobering result for Mr. Saakashvili and his ruling team, who took power in the peaceful Rose Revolution nine years ago. A poll by Edison Research aired on Georgian television showed Georgian Dream, Mr. Ivanishvili’s party, has likely won more than half of the popular vote. This result is a sobering verdict on Mr. Saakashvili and his ruling team, who took power in the peaceful Rose Revolution nine years ago.
Even so, Mr. Saakashvili’s party may still retain a majority in the 150-seat Parliament, because about half of the seats are elected in individual races by district rather than by national proportional representation. Recent changes in the constitution will shift many of the president’s current powers to the parliament starting next year. The shift will have a practical effect since next year Georgia’s parliament will take on many powers that now rest with the president, according to recent changes to the Constitution.
As president, Mr. Saakashvili has remade Georgia as a bastion of resistance to Russian influence and a laboratory for free-market economic policy. He faced no formidable challenge until last year, with the emergence of Mr. Ivanishvili, a reclusive philanthropist who has spent years spreading his Russian-earned billions around Georgia’s countryside. Mr. Ivanishvili has tapped into long-simmering grievances over poverty and the heavy-handed ruling style of Mr. Saakashvili and his team. In his years in office, Mr. Saakashvili has restyled Georgia as a bastion of resistance to Russian influence and a laboratory for free-market economic policy.
On Monday the country seemed to be heading for a reckoning, with each side expressing complete confidence that it would win. He faced no formidable challenges until the emergence last year of Bidzina Ivanishvili, a reclusive philanthropist who has spent years spreading his Russian-earned billions around Georgia’s countryside. Mr. Ivanishvili has tapped into long-simmering grievances over poverty and the heavy-handed ruling style of Mr. Saakashvili and his team.
Georgia has a history of chaotic power struggles — the first and second post-Soviet presidents left office before the end of their terms to defuse deepening civil unrest — and Mr. Ivanishvili’s supporters have warned that they will take to the streets rather than accept vote counts that they consider fraudulent. After the exit polls were released, cars flying Georgian Dream flags screamed down Tbilisi’s central artery and thousands gathered inFfreedom Square. Temur Butikashvili, 52, a filmmaker, said it marked the first time Georgia had changed its leadership through an election.
By midday, with voting still in progress, Mr. Ivanishvili had already declared victory, telling reporters that his party, Georgian Dream, will win “no less than two-thirds of seats in the Parliament.” “We have done what all our ancestors aspired to. We have calmly, quietly transferred power,” Mr. Butikashvili said.
A visit to Karaleti, a settlement 50 miles north of the capital where hundreds of identical concrete houses hold families displaced by the 2008 war with Russia, revealed the tensions surrounding the election. The government has accused Mr. Ivanishvili of acting on behalf of the Kremlin, and many people in Karaleti believe it: When activists from his party visited over the summer, they were hounded out of town by residents waving sticks. Of Mr. Saakashvili, he said, “we had great hopes when he came in — he studied in America, we thought he had an American mentality — but he turned from a democrat into an autocrat. He turned into an authoritarian.”
“People started to shout, ‘You are Russian, you are Russian,’ and they had no answer — even a small child knows they are on Russia’s side,” said Dato Chulkhadze, 38, who was lounging with other men on Monday opposite the village’s polling booth. Another neighbor, Pikria Gorilashvili, 49, credited Mr. Saakashvili with a list of improvements that have come to Georgia over the last decade, like a reliable electricity and gas supply and a sharp drop in crime. With Monday’s election, many felt the country was headed for a reckoning. Georgia has a history of chaotic power struggles — the first and second post-Soviet presidents left office before the end of their terms to avoid deepening civil unrest — and Mr. Ivanishvili’s supporters have warned that they will take to the streets rather than accept vote counts that they consider fraudulent.
“We do not live as we lived in 1991,” she said. “And now we are going to Europe. We are becoming modern.” Both sides had grounds to declare victory, but big questions loom ahead. The campaign has been marked by venomous attacks, and it is hard to imagine the two leaders collaborating for the year that remains of Mr. Saakashvili’s presidency.
Still, several residents approached a reporter to say that there was more support for Mr. Ivanishvili in the town than there might seem at first, because people were afraid to publicly align themselves with the opposition. The breakdown of Parliamentary seats could also prove a sticking point. Mr. Saakashvili’s governing party may still command more than half of the 150 seats in parliament, since under Georgia’s complex rules, 73 are single-mandate, meaning they go to individual candidates who receive the most votes. Under the new system going into effect next year, a party with 76 or more seats will have a chance to elect a prime minister.
“We have a hope in Ivanishvili, that everything will be better and we will start developing,” said Koba Mchelidze, 47, whose family was driven out of the village of Kvemo Achabeti in the South Ossetia region in 2008. Asked how many of his neighbors agree, he said, “You will never know,” and added, “We are afraid someone is watching.” But the final results will not be in until later this month, and the outcome remains in doubt. Early Tuesday, Mr. Ivanishvili declared that according to his exit polls, his party had won 100 seats. But a leader of the governing party, David Darchiashvili, said his side had at least two-thirds, adding that “I am confident this majority will be enough to elect our own prime minister.”
The voting on Monday is being conducted under close scrutiny, with 1,400 international observers and more than 50,000 Georgians deployed to voting stations, according to the Georgian government. By late afternoon, turnout was running above 53 percent, and the Central Election Commission had reported no major violations. “It doesn’t mean that we are dividing the country into Tbilisi and provinces,” he said. “We are all Georgians, we are all citizens of our country. We should all stand together and we should all manage to work together in frames of existing democracy.”
Volunteer observers in the capital, Tbilisi, said voters were on the alert for any signs of fraud. Some brought their own pen, to make sure they were not asked to use disappearing ink to mark ballots. One of the key differences between Mr. Ivanishvili and Mr. Saakashvili is on Russia; Mr. Ivanishvili has criticized the president for his open hostility toward Russia, and suggested that if he takes power, he will take a more conciliatory line, and Russian markets will reopen to Georgian produce, wine and mineral water, providing an economic lift. Meanwhile, Mr. Saakashvili has accused his opponent being a front for the Kremlin.
Tbilisi has long been a center of opposition to Mr. Saakashvili, and voters there were upbeat about the election on Monday. Anna Iobidze, 25, who works in advertising, said she could not think of anyone she knew who supported the president or his party. Asked whether she believed the election was being run fairly, she answered without a moment’s hesitation. There was palpable tension on Monday in the village of Karaleti, where identical concrete houses hold hundreds of families displaced from South Ossetia by the 2008 war with Russia.
“We have such a bad political situation that there is no way it can be fair,” she said. When activists from Mr. Ivanishvili’s party visited over the summer, they were hounded out of town by residents waving sticks. Dato Chulkhadze, 38, lounged with a group of brawny men in t-shirts opposite Karaleti’s polling station on Monday, recalling the episode with satisfaction,
“People started to shout, ‘You are Russian, you are Russian,’ and they had no answer — even a small child knows they are on Russia’s side,” said Dato Chulkhadze, 38. Asked about Mr. Ivanishivili’s changes, he said, “I pray to God nothing like this will happen. If it happens, the Russians will return.”
But several residents approached a reporter quietly to say that support for Mr. Ivanishivili was higher than it appeared, except people are afraid to say so publicly. One woman, who would not give her name, said she was voting for Mr. Ivanishvili because “we should not be afraid when we talk.”
“We have a hope in Ivanishvili, that everything will better and we will start developing,” said Koba Mchelidze, 47, whose family was driven out of the South Ossetian village of Kvemo Achabeti in 2008. Asked how many of his neighbors agree, he said, “you will never know.”
“We are afraid someone is watching,” he said.
The vote is under extreme scrutiny, and many are waiting for Tuesday’s assessments from 1,400 international observers who fanned out across the country. In the opposition stronghold of Tbilisi, some voters were so alert for fraud that they brought their own pens, to make sure they were not given invisible ink. Lawrence Sheets, a South Caucasus specialist with the International Crisis Group, said he was tired but relieved that Monday had passed in relative calm.
“Everyone’s been very tired — it’s been a year of this rhetoric and poisonous stuff — but in the end if it doesn’t end in something really unstable, which we feared, it’s a positive step for the country,” he said. “What other post-Soviet country has had this kind of process?”

Olesya Vartanyan contributed reporting.