Georgian president, PM on presidential election

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Georgian president, PM on presidential election

(Xinhua) 08:12, October 28, 2013

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TBILISI, Oct. 2 -- Georgian president and prime minister made separately comments on Sunday's presidential election of which polling had ended.

"I want to tell everybody who is dissatisfied with the election results that everybody should respect the opinion of the majority of voters," said outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili, "Georgia elected a new president and I want to thank all voters who participated in the election, because all elections, whatever their results, serve the further development of democracy in the country."

In another televised speech, Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said: "I want to thank the Georgian people for recognizing, appreciating and supporting our candidate."

"I want to apologize to people for my statement about the second round of elections. It would have been a tragedy to me. I congratulate you all. We will now together build a happy state."

The prime minister said shortly before Sunday's polling that he would advise the ruling coalition candidate to pull out from a run- off with either opposition candidate Davit Bakradze or opposition candidate Nino Burjanadze.

Two separate exit polls late on Sunday gave lead to the ruling coalition candidate, Giorgi Margvelashvili, both with taking over 65 percent of votes.

Shortly after exit poll results were known, opposition candidate Davit Bakradze congratulated Giorgi Margvelashvili on his winning presidential election.

"As an opposition leader, I am ready to cooperate with the government...and to work with the new president on all those issues which are essential to better life of our people," said Davit Bakradze, former parliamentary speaker and now leader of the parliamentary minority during a televised speech.

In the meantime, the Georgian Central Election Commission is processing data collected from the ballot papers it had got from polling stations around the country.

Official announcement of the final election results are expected later on Sunday or early on Monday.

In all 23 candidate ran in this year's presidential campaign, with over 3.53 million registered voters having cast their ballot.

Once the final results are announced by the Central Election Commission, the new president, the fourth elected president of independent Georgia since 1991 is expected to be sworn in on Nov. 17.