Georgia opposition sees support surge Georgia's opposition appeared to be enjoying a big surge in support on the eve of Monday's parliamentary elections, after staging one of the biggest demonstrations the former Soviet republic has ever seen at the weekend. Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition brought crowds estimated by participants at 200,000 or more on to the streets of Tbilisi, the capital, on Saturday, filling Freedom Square and stretched down adjacent thoroughfares. This compared to a pro-government demonstration of about 60,000 on Friday. The show of support for the the billionaire businessman's six-party coalition came after the release of harrowing videos showing prisoners in a Tbilisi jail being physically and mentally tortured. The leaked tapes have undermined the image of western-backed President Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement and left his ruling party facing its biggest electoral test since it came to power in the "Rose" revolution of 2003, replacing the veteran president Eduard Schevardnadze. The opposition now claims it would win in a fair vote but fears that Mr Saakashvili's party will use administrative pressure and vote-rigging to ensure its victory. Mr Saakashvili has said the vote will be free and fair, witnessed by more than 400 international observers. Diplomats and many ordinary citizens in Tbilisi believe large opposition protests are possible if Mr Saakashvili's party wins, even if the victory is endorsed by international observers, and fear potential violence. Georgian authorities have twice used force to disperse protests by different opposition groups, in 2007 and 2011. "Nine years ago many people wanted Schevardnadze to leave but he would never have allowed bloodshed," said Irina, a telephone operator in Tbilisi. Now a lot of people want this government to leave but we fear it may act differently. The stakes are high and tensions growing ahead of Monday's poll. A new constitution comes into force in 2013, when Mr Saakashvili must stand down after completing two presidential terms. The new arrangements will boost parliament's role and transfer many executive powers from the president to the prime minister. Both sides are seeking to portray themselves as guarantors of democracy and western integration, alleging that the other would return the country to a corrupt and chaotic Russian-dominated past. However, the prison videos have bolstered opposition claims that the country's image as a beacon of democracy among former Soviet republics is a façade behind which lurks an uglier reality. Mr Ivanishvili's supporters cite an opinion poll, conducted by the German Forsa polling agency after the video tapes emerged, putting support for Georgian Dream at 65 per cent, against 25 per cent for UNM. Officials from Mr Saakashvili's camp admit their own polling suggests they have lost support as a result of the prison abuse scandal but still believe they are heading for victory, though by a narrower margin than before. Publicly available polling data is sparse. An August poll by the National Democratic Institute put UNM on 37 per cent and Georgian Dream on 12 per cent, but 43 per cent were undecided or refused to answer. In the increasingly rancorous campaign, Georgian Dream on Sunday accused the Georgian authorities of carrying out a cyber attack on its computers for several months. Paul Joyal, a US-based security consultant advising Georgian Dream, said malware had been inserted into 50 computers, including those of Mr Ivanishvili's family. It was capable of capturing screen shots and keystrokes, stealing files and turning on the computers" cameras. The manner of the attack suggested it could only have been carried out by state actors, he said. Mr Saakashvili's spokesman said the claims were a "blatant lie," and said the government feared the opposition would seek to disrupt the elections through hacking attacks or other provocations.