By Elizabeth Owen and Giorgi Lomsadze: 01/21/08

As thousands of opposition supporters gathered a few kilometers away, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was inaugurated on January 20 for a second term in office with a call for Georgians to put aside political battles for a united war on poverty.

"You chose a united Georgia. You chose a Georgia without poverty," a hoarse-voiced Saakashvili told hundreds of onlookers in a 30-minute speech in front of parliament.

Outlining plans for a "cheap credit bank" -- a promise first raised during his campaign -- the president pledged to present "a very detailed" anti-poverty program within the next 50 days. Pensions, he said, would also increase to $100 per month by April.

The promises, though, are more than routine inauguration fare. Since the November 7 unrest in Tbilisi, Saakashvili and the government have emphasized social welfare initiatives in an apparent bid to quell popular discontent. As a reflection of recent tensions, Saakashvili lost the capital, Tbilisi, to rival candidate Levan Gachechiladze by a sizeable margin, though prevailed in all but two (Kazbegi and Dusheti) regional votes.

Assurances that the government is open to criticism and supports an objective media and robust political opposition are also part of that outreach campaign. Expressing thanks to rival presidential candidates and individuals ranging from journalists and human rights activists to doctors and business people, Saakashvili repeatedly stressed the country's unity of purpose.

"We may differ often in our ideas, but we are united in our love of Georgia, in our devotion to democracy and freedom," he said.

"Those who are disappointed by the election results, I want to say that I understand you," he continued, "but the time for rivalry is over." "[T]here are many parties, but only one homeland," he concluded.

The 40-year-old Georgian leader pledged that a "solid" opposition, along with an independent judiciary system and "strong" democratic institutions would be the foundation of Georgia's democratic development. Opposition members have also been invited to join a working commission on tackling Georgia's poverty problems.

To underline that message of unity, Saakashvili on Sunday morning visited the 12th century Gelati monastery founded by his "ideal," King David the Builder, whose reforms helped unite medieval Georgia. On January 21, an additional oath-taking ceremony took place at the nearby ruined 11th century Bagrati Cathedral, another powerful symbol of Georgia's past unity.

The presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania - among Georgia's strongest Eastern European allies - braved unseasonable cold to attend the downtown Tbilisi inauguration, which concluded with a brief military parade. Official delegations from 17 other countries including Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan were also on hand, as were representatives of the European Commission and North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez represented the United States, though Georgian media focused primarily on Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza, a better-known figure locally.

Conflicts aside from those with the opposition were also addressed. Russia -- repeatedly accused of working to stir up unrest during the election campaign -- was represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who later met with Saakashvili, Patriarch Ilia II and opposition leaders.

As television cameras zoomed in on a stern-faced Lavrov, the president in his inauguration address offered "a hand of partnership to our northern neighbor."

"We should be friends," he said. "We should be closer and we should stand together."

In remarks to television reporters after a later meeting with Saakashvili, Lavrov welcomed the overture, but added that "concrete acts" were still needed. The two countries have been at dagger-lengths over a variety of issues, ranging from a Moscow-imposed embargo on Georgian wine and mineral water to Russian support for the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

But the January 20 inauguration was not quite a victory lap for Saakashvili.

Roughly an hour after the ceremony, thousands gathered in Tbilisi's hippodrome to protest Saakashvili's assumption of office and to celebrate his main challenger, Levan Gachechiladze, as Georgia's allegedly duly elected leader.

Wielding an icon and a religious poster, Gachechiladze, surrounded by leaders of the nine parties that backed his presidential bid, blew kisses to supporters gathered in the open-air stadium. "Levani, Levani!" the crowd cheered, holding up index fingers to symbolize Gachechiladze's ballot number.

"The true president needs a mandate from his people. Saakashvili is not our president," Gachechiladze, a former Saakashvili campaign manager, told a cheering crowd.

"The real inauguration is here," celebrity theater director Keti Dolidze, speaking in English, commented to EurasiaNet. "The election was totally falsified and we've come to welcome the person who truly won. All those ambassadors and presidents should've come here, not to Saakashvili."

Retired schoolteacher Mariam Svimonishvili shared this view. "I don't care about that little show they've put on Rustaveli [Avenue]. Here is the real president chosen by the people," she said, adding that inauguration onlookers were "either paid to be there, or are being ferried by buses, or have become zombies."

Throughout the election aftermath, Georgian opposition leaders, media and many ordinary voters have portrayed the United States, Georgia's most powerful ally, as somehow able to influence who would ultimately be declared the country's next president.

At a January 19 press conference, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs Bryza, the target of much recent opposition criticism, tried to correct that image.

"It's not really the role of the United States to act as your big brother. Georgia had a big brother for a long time," Bryza told a room of primarily Georgian reporters in reference to Russia. "You don't need another one."

While noting that Washington was "disappointed" by the "serious irregularities" observed during the election, Bryza stated that an investigation by 20 US embassy teams had found "that there had not been large-scale fraud that altered the outcome of the election."

He called, however, for the government and opposition to "shift their focus now on doing everything possible. . . in making sure that the parliamentary elections are free and fair and that the procedures are much improved."

On January 18, additional sharp criticism of election procedures came in a post-election report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions. At "a significant 23 percent" of the 180 polling stations observed by OSCE/ODIHR teams, vote counts ranked as "bad or very bad," according to the report. Outright tampering was observed in 8 percent of the stations, while vote tallying in district election commissions was deemed "slow, not very well organized, and often chaotic."

In an observation that has already resonated with Gachechiladze supporters, the mission found that precinct voting protocols often did not match those supplied by district election commissions to the Central Election Commission. The report mentions that the CEC itself stated that in around 27 percent of polling stations "the number of voters who voted did not reconcile with the sum of valid and invalid votes." [For details, see "Trash Talking: Georgian NGO Activist Claims to Find Proof of Electoral Fraud in CEC Garbage Bin"]

The mission also took issue with the process for evaluating reported violations, saying that "the election administration at all levels and the courts did not fully and adequately consider and investigate a considerable number of complaints regarding irregularities in voting, counting and tabulation of election results." Most such complaints to date have been dismissed for alleged procedural problems.

[Election commission officials did not address the report's findings before the inauguration, but in remarks to reporters cited by InterPressNews agency, Saakashvili campaign spokesperson and State Minister for Conflict Resolution Davit Bakradze, stated that the report had not raised any new issues.]

The likelihood for government-opposition cooperation in rectifying these problem areas, however, remains sketchy.

Taking turns at the podium on Sunday, opposition leaders dismissed reports of ongoing talks with the government. "The government is pretending that we have engaged in negotiations. That is not true, my friends," said Conservative Party parliamentarian Zviad Dzidziguri.

Dzidziguri also rejected any chance that the opposition would accept posts in a Saakashvili government - an idea mooted by the media following statements by the Georgian president that he would work more closely with the opposition in future.

As has become a near-standard for opposition rallies, rally organizers also accused television companies Mze, Rustavi-2 and Georgian Public Broadcasting of downplaying the size of the demonstration. Dzidziguri called on a relatively thin crowd gathered in nearby bleachers to come down into the hippodrome's field as "state-controlled televisions are frantically filming half-empty stands." Some activists moved into the stands to compensate for the gaps.

Yet, despite the rhetoric, opposition demands for a run-off or a recount have largely subsided. Leaders state that they are now keeping their sights focused on the upcoming parliamentary elections, expected in May. The pressure on the government, they claim, will continue to ensure a free and fair poll.

"We must have free elections and free media," Gachechiladze said. "If there is no free election and free media, then... we reserve the right to rename our United Popular Movement the United Popular Rebellion."

Editor's Note: Elizabeth Owen is EurasiaNet's Caucasus news editor based in Tbilisi. Giorgi Lomsadze is a freelance reporter also based in Tbilisi.

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Editor's Note: Giorgi Lomsadze is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.