Eduard A Shevardnadze

Eduard A. Shevardnadze has been elected president by a landslide, according to preliminary results released Monday, in a vote that signaled confidence in a leader who has brought relative stability to a country recently rent by war. "A triumph has been won by the forces of democracy," Shevardnadze proclaimed in his weekly television address a day after simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections. The initial ballot count gave Shevardnadze 75% of the vote, beating five other candidates.

In an escalating crackdown on corruption in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, police using roadblocks and helicopters engaged in shootouts Wednesday with alleged smugglers. Authorities also said former President Eduard A. Shevardnadze might stand trial for corruption. "Of course the personal safety of President Shevardnadze is guaranteed, but no one is above the law," Georgian Interior Minister Georgy Baramidze said in a telephone interview from Tbilisi, the capital.

At a shop that looks out on a Stalin statue dominating this town's central square, a middle-aged woman dispenses groceries off the shelf, fish from a countertop bucket and pride in the hometown boy who made it to the top.

Preliminary results in Georgia's election showed a bloc backing veteran President Eduard Shevardnadze in the lead, but opposition parties' gains suggest that his government will have a rougher ride in the new parliament. Election officials said Shevardnadze's "For a New Georgia" bloc had taken 26.6% of the vote, with about 50% counted.

Georgian President Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the onetime Soviet foreign minister who helped end the Cold War, faced a growing crisis Saturday as opposition supporters rallied in his Caucasus nation's capital to demand that he step down. Key opposition politicians urged Shevardnadze, 75, to resign in the wake of alleged fraud in parliamentary elections held Nov. 2.

Rejecting calls for his resignation over allegations that his ruling party rigged results of last week's parliamentary elections, Georgian President Eduard A. Shevardnadze on Sunday launched talks with his opponents to defuse a growing crisis in his former Soviet republic. "I was elected by the Georgian people," Shevardnadze told reporters on the second day of demonstrations that drew thousands of protesters in Tbilisi, the nation's capital.

Georgian President Eduard A. Shevardnadze, appearing shaken by mounting protests demanding his resignation, pleaded with his countrymen Friday not to risk civil war -- and hinted that if the crisis eases, he might resign. His critics responded by holding the largest in a series of daily anti-Shevardnadze demonstrations. Mikheil Saakashvili, a key opposition leader, called for a civil disobedience campaign starting today aimed at paralyzing the government.

Georgia's main opposition leader, Mikheil Saakashvili, vowed to launch a nationwide march on President Eduard A. Shevardnadze's offices this week to force him to quit. Protests in Georgia were triggered by a disputed parliamentary election Nov. 2. Shevardnadze dismissed calls for his resignation, saying he would not tolerate anti-constitutional acts and would instead call parliament into session to resolve the crisis. His party, in alliance with another, holds a majority in parliament.

A key opposition leader in the former Soviet republic of Georgia denounced the announcement Thursday of official election results favorable to pro-government parties as a "coup" engineered by President Eduard A. Shevardnadze. "These results are illegitimate, and the parliament is illegal," Mikheil Saakashvili told a televised news conference in Tblisi, Georgia's capital. "This parliament should not and will not survive if we are to have a future. This is usurpation of power.

The top security official in the former Soviet republic of Georgia called Friday for new parliamentary elections as a compromise solution to the countr's political crisis. National Security Council chief Tedo Japaridze acknowledged "vote rigging and fraud" in balloting early this month but said the officially chosen parliament should be allowed to convene pending early elections to pick a replacement.