Georgians to vote in last direct election for president

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Sunday's election will be the last time residents of the former Soviet republic of Georgia get to cast a ballot for president — that's if any of the 25 candidates running gets an absolute majority. Zurabishvili, who is running as an independent even though she has the backing of the ruling Georgian Dream party headed by former Prime Minister and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, has faced personal attacks over her background and been branded a traitor for saying a brief war with Russia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 occurred because “we yielded to Russia's provocation.”

The campaign has also been marked by the release of several secretly recorded audiotapes alleging bribery among state officials, a murder plot implicating former President Mikheil Saakashvili, and claims of witness tampering and torture in politically charged cases. Independent opinion polls are hard to come by in Georgia, but party-backed surveys suggest the main challengers are Zurabishvili, Grigol Vashadze, also a former foreign minister who is running for the opposition United National Movement (UNM), and former parliamentary speaker Davit Bakradze, nominated by the opposition European Georgia party. Opinion polls suggest that none of the candidates will exceed the 50 percent needed for a first-round victory and that the country on the Black Sea will have to choose between Sunday's two top candidates in a runoff that would be held by Dec. 1.
Georgian citizens vote in the last presidential election to be decided by direct election.