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Putin: Saakashvili to `Cling to Power'

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  • Putin: Saakashvili to `Cling to Power'

    Putin: Saakashvili to `Cling to Power'


    © RIA Novosti. Aleksey NikolskiyMikheil Saakashvili

    Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose ruling UNM party was
    soundly defeated in parliamentary elections on October 1, will try to
    maintain his grip on power, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

    `Saakashvili will try to cling to power,' Putin said in an interview
    on the Central Television program broadcast on the NTV television
    network on Sunday.

    `I think he will try to offset defeat in the party lists with the
    single-mandate constituencies,' Putin said.

    Saakashvili's current presidential term - his last under
    constitutional term limits - ends in October 2013.

    Saakashvili was prompt in conceding defeat at the hands of the
    opposition Georgian Dream coalition led by a bitter rival, billionaire
    tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili, a move that effectively silenced his
    critics in Moscow.

    Georgian Dream won 83 out of 150 seats in the parliament.
    Saakashvili's UNM will have 67 seats.

    The majority of the president's executive powers will be transferred
    to the new prime minister under constitutional reforms that take
    effect in January.

    Georgia has had no diplomatic relations with Russia since they fought
    a five-day war in 2008. And while Russia did not back either side at
    the polls, there is great personal antipathy between Saakashvili and
    Putin, who said of his Georgian counterpart in the aftermath of the
    South Ossetia war that he would like to `hang him by the balls.'




    From: A. Papazian
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