• Listen to this segment

GUEST: Deborah B. Wild, journalist covering the Caucasus region, based in Tbilisi, Georgia

As the final votes of Georgia’s presidential election were counted, a unified opposition has claimed electoral fraud. Official results from the Eastern European nation’s Central Election Commission show pro-western incumbent Mikhail Saakashvili with a decisive victory over his opponent Levan Gachechiladze. Saakashvili, who has claimed 52% of the vote nationwide, managed to gain enough votes to claim a first-round victory and avoid a second round run-off. Contesting the outcome, opposition members and their presidential candidate are demanding the resignation of the Central Election Commission. They say, among other things, that vote-summary protocols were falsified and threaten a hunger strike and a massive protest if there is no runoff vote. Russia has joined in, stating that the election was fraudulent, whereas the E.U. and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called it largely free and fair. The recent presidential election in Georgia is particularly significant for being the first truly competitive in the country’s post-Soviet era.