By DPA
Tbilisi (Georgia) : Georgia’s electoral commission announced Monday morning that incumbent President Mikhail Saakashvili won the weekend’s presidential election with 51.7 percent of the vote after two-thirds of the ballots were counted.
The late-night announcement by election official Levan Tarkhnishvili was made as the commission’s website indicated that fewer than half of the electoral precincts had been counted.
Saakashvili’s majority win means there will be no runoff election.
The main opposition candidate, Levan Gachechiladze, received 25 percent in Saturday’s polls, according to the Central Election Commission.
An opposition rally in central Tbilisi Sunday ended without incident, with around 10,000 supporters of the nine-party coalition opposing Saakashvili dispersing without having conceded defeat.
Gachechiladze called on his supporters to again rally Tuesday after the announcement of official results. Monday is Orthodox Christmas in Georgia.
The narrow win is in sharp contrast to 2004 when Saakashvili, 40, had a 96-percent approval rating that propelled him to power.
Saakashvili came under international criticism because of the November 2007 police crackdown on opposition activists and subsequent imposition of a state of emergency.