Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has accepted a letter of resignation from the country's government in the wake of the October 1 parliamentary election won by the opposition bloc, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM) lost the parliamentary elections and claimed only 67 out of 150 seats in parliament, while rival bloc Georgian Dream of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili won the election, gaining 83 seats. Other parties failed to get at least 5% of the vote to be represented in parliament.

The list of candidates for the posts in a new Georgian cabinet was presented to parliament by Ivanishvili on Monday. It will be approved by parliament on October 20 or 21.

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

With a majority in parliament, Ivanishvili is the favorite to become prime minister. Saakashvili will remain president until his current term -- his last under constitutional term limits -- ends in October 2013.

Felix Stanevski, head of the Caucasus Department of the CIS Institute, who served as Russian Ambassador to Georgia in 1996-2000, said commenting on the result of Georgia's parliamentary election that it would be difficult to come to an agreement between the opposition coalition leaders and the ruling party.

"They have a different vision of Georgian policy," Stanevski said. "Now the ruling political class is focusing on the concentration of power in the hands of a very small group of people, particularly President Saakashvili and Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili. From the point of view of the UNM, the threat to the internal development of Georgia is associated with a lack of preparedness and immaturity of Georgian society for using all the levers of democracy."

According to Stanevski, the capability of a liberal-democratic government to cope with the problems facing Georgia is a questionable issue, because Georgia has never lived under such a regime.

"The regime of Gamsakhurdia cannot be regarded a liberal-democratic one. [Eduard] Shevardnadze also was neither a liberal nor a democrat, despite his claims. The leadership of Saakashvili is an even more perfectly authoritarian type of leadership," Stanevski opined.

Stanevski said corruption in Georgia has not been eliminated and has just "changed its character" and even exacerbated, and the issue of the amount of bribes amongst officials of different ranks is becoming central to these conditions.

"If lower-ranking officials take bribes, this is mostly suppressed. But control over the conduct of top officials in Georgia has still not been established," he said.

Regarding future relations of Georgia with the U.S. and the EU, Stanevski said that generally they puruse a policy of supporting Georgia; in some cases, the EU, not just the United States, is very active.

"But there are some nuances. For example, there is such a detail as the personal attitude toward Saakashvili."

In Europe, Stanevski said, this attitude -- since at least August 2008 -- has been quite cautious. US support for Saakashvili has been greater than its support for the opposition. The U.S. has a good attitude toward the opposition, too, and has no worries about it. But Washington will now worry about any adjustments in the relationship between Russia and Georgia, Stanevski said.

"The thesis that Georgia has turned to Russia will be widely exploited, I am afraid," he added.