Polls open, Shedvardnadze votes, OSCE comments скачать в хорошем качестве

Polls open, Shedvardnadze votes, OSCE comments

(4 Jan 2004) 1. Outside of voting station 2. Various of former president Eduard Shevardnadze going through voting process to cast ballot 4. Ballot list 5. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Eduard Shevardnadze, former president "I think everything will be alright. But Misha (nickname for Mikhail Saakashvili) has to study how to work properly to be a president. You need to do more than deliver speeches. He has to learn how to communicate with people." 6. OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Range Rover arriving 7. Giovanni Kessler, vice president of the OSCE parliamentary assembly walking into ballot station 8. Kessler checking voting procedure 9. SOUNDBITE (English) Giovanni Kessler, vice president of the OSCE parliamentary assembly: "It was apparently up to now well organised, at least here in this city. I don't have figures for outside Tbilisi. But until now it seems very orderly and well organised." 10. Kessler checking voting forms 11. People entering voting station and being checked with ultra violet light 12. People registering to vote 13. Various of people dropping ballots into box STORYLINE: Six weeks after President Eduard Shevardnadze's dramatic resignation in the face of mass demonstrations, Georgians on Sunday voted for his successor, widely expected to be the man who led the protests. Mikhail Saakashvili, the intense, 36-year-old Western-educated president of the Tbilisi city council, is the overwhelming favorite against four relatively unknown challengers. A fifth challenger dropped out of the race late on Saturday. The election is being closely watched as an indicator of Georgia's commitment to democracy after the downfall of Shevardnadze, who had cultivated ties with the West but retained Soviet-era impulses. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe which has helped organise the process has said that, so far, voting appears to be proceeding smoothly. But the elections are not expected to be trouble free. The first voters came out in the pre-dawn darkness, many dressed in their Sunday best to cast ballots. Georgia's communications system is shaky and many polling places are in remote villages huddled in hard-to-reach gorges and steep valleys. In the November election, returns were not compiled for several days. Georgia, with about 5.5 (m) million people, was comparatively well-off during Soviet times, its economy bolstered by tourism and its famous wines. But after the collapse of Communism, the country's industries collapsed and Georgia was torn by the separatist wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Widespread corruption has siphoned off massive Western aid, pensions are as little as 14 laris (US$7) a month and electricity outages are frequent, even in the capital. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...