The Georgian parliament has set 4 January as the date for a presidential election in the former Soviet republic after Eduard Shevardnadze was forced to resign. Opposition leader Mikhail Saakishvili, who led weeks of opposition protests against Shevardnadze, has said he will run in the election. Earlier, the highest court in Georgia quashed most of the results of the parliamentary vote held under the deposed Shevardnadze, paving the way for fresh elections. In a televised statement on Tuesday, a Supreme Court judge said that the election of 150 deputies were found invalid. The election of the other 85 deputies will stand. Georgia's acting President Nino Burjanadze, another potential candidate, promised that the elections would establish a new democratic era following the overthrow of Shevardadze. "We are going to hold democratic and fair elections within the next few weeks. I'm going to do everything to maintain stability and peace in the country," she told lawmakers.
| Good luck to Georgia. It'll be nice if they manage to pull off a reasonably honest election. But whoever's going to run the government next is still going to have some major problems to clean up. |
|