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Pollsters Predict Saakashvili Reelection
A poll released last weekend on pro-government Rustavi 2 television shows Georgian presidential candidate Mikheil Saakashvili with an overwhelming lead over his opposition. The poll by BCG Research company fund 54 percent of respondents intend to vote for Saakashvili, while 15.5 percent favor candidate from the United Opposition Levan Gachechiladze and 15 percent support businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili. Saakashvili’s popularity can be attributed in large measure to campaign promises to improve the quality of life for Georgians.
Spokesmen for the Labor Party, whose candidate Shalva Natelashvili is ranked fifth with 5.6-percent support, called the poll a forgery and pointed out that BCG Research is headed by the wife of former Georgian Central Election Commission chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili. That party is now picketing the studios of Rustavi 2 in protest.
The opposition is also trying to have television channel Imedi reopened. That station, which belongs to Patarkatsishvili, was closed after an opposition meeting in downtown Tbilisi was broken up on November 7. Polish human rights activist Adam Michnik came to Tbilisi to help settle that problem and issued a strongly worded statement in favor of reopening the station after a meeting with acting Georgian president Nino Burjanadze. The cable channel Maestro also experienced a mysterious blackout.
The Georgian presidential election will take place on January 5.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 03, 2007
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