Saakashvili: January 5 a huge Victory of Georgia

The January 5 election was the most democratic one ever held in Georgia and was “a huge victory for Georgia,” incumbent presidential candidate Mikheil Saakashvili has said.

He was speaking in a Tbilisi concert hall to cheering supporters, who, on the basis of exit poll results, were celebrating his apparent victory.

Meanwhile, Saakashvili’s main rival, Levan Gachechiladze of the nine-party opposition coalition, said the election had been rigged and called on supporters to rally on January 6. The Central Election Commission (CEC) has yet to announce early official results.

Below is the text of Saakashvili’s address:

Today I want to thank all the people of Georgia for holding democratic elections. I want to thank all of you gathered here – and many many others – for your support.

We will wait for the official results from the Central Election Commission. However, the indications from independent exit polls conducted according to international standards show that we are winning in the first round.

Again, we will wait for the final results. If the final results confirm that I have won in the first round, then I will assume the honor and responsibility to serve all of Georgia for the next five years.

I want to thank everyone, even those who did not vote for me, but who actually voted. I plan on working with everybody; I plan on struggling for Georgia’s unification with everybody, with all patriotic Georgian forces, with those who agree and those who don’t agree with us; with those who voted for us and who did not vote for us, because we have a common motherland, we have common goals, we have common great tasks. And we, all, will finally win. Our victory will be a joint victory. I want to offer a hand of friendship, cooperation and cooperation to everyone in order to achieve our national goals. This is my firm message to everyone.

You know, that today we held conversations with many foreign observers. Georgia has proven that it can hold free, democratic, transparent and really fair elections. It was the most free and competitive election in the history of Georgia. We, all, have witnessed that our country has excellently passed a test in democracy and has held an election, which was the most free and democratic election and the most competitive election ever held in Georgia. Today was a huge victory for Georgia.

We should understand that our task is to unite Georgia and to have Georgia without poverty. We should all work to eradicate poverty in Georgia; we should all work to ensure that people in Georgia have a chance to express themselves, to implement their tasks and reach their goals.

Of course, our struggle will continue. Our struggle against poverty is just beginning. I plan on working intensively; we have much work to do; we have great tasks ahead of us. It will be difficult to do all, but we have together solved difficult problems before.
We are united by one thing – this is our devotion to our country and our willingness to solve the big problems we face.
 
I want to express my confidence that Georgia has a great future and today we witnessed a great victory for Georgia.