[LINK] "Georgia’s President Concedes Defeat in Parliamentary Election"

[rfmcdonald]

Ellen Barry's New York Times article is one of many reporting that, in the aftermath of the defeat of his party, Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili has conceded defeat and is going to allow for a democratic transition.

This is a good thing. Whatever good he may have achieved has to be weighed against his authoritarian, as well as his fatal decision in 2008 to invade South Ossetia and start a losing war. Here's to hoping that Saakashvili will keep his word, and that the Georgian Dream coalition will govern wisely.

Georgia’s larger-than-life president, Mikheil Saakashvili, conceded defeat on Tuesday after early results in Georgia’s hotly contested parliamentary race showed that a coalition backed by the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili had edged out his party.

“After summarizing the preliminary results of parliamentary elections, it is obvious that the coalition Georgian Dream has gained an advantage in these elections,” Mr. Saakashvili said in a statement. “It means that the parliamentary majority should form a new government and I, as the president, will contribute — in frames of the Constitution — to the process of launching Parliament’s work so that it is able to elect its chairman and also to form a new government.”

Georgia’s Central Election Commission said that with about 25 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Ivanishvili’s coalition, Georgian Dream, had 53 percent and the governing United National Movement had 42. The result is a sobering verdict on Mr. Saakashvili and his ruling team, who took power in the peaceful Rose Revolution nine years ago.

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.

He faced no formidable challenges until the emergence last year 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.

It was a remarkable upset. After the exit polls were released, cars flying Georgian Dream flags screamed down the central artery here, and thousands gathered in Freedom Square. Temur Butikashvili, 52, a filmmaker, said it was the first time Georgia had changed its leadership through an election.

“We have done what all our ancestors aspired to. We have calmly, quietly transferred power,” Mr. Butikashvili said.