[6] In November 2007, tens of thousands of Georgians protested outside the parliament in the capital, Tbilisi, urging President Mikhail Saakashvili to step down.
The government accused the Russian secret services of being involved in an attempted coup d'état and declared a nationwide state of emergency, which lasted until 16 November 2007.
[8] In late December, Badri Patarkatsishvili, a business tycoon and presidential candidate who had pledged his financial support to the November rallies, became embroiled in a major controversy.
The authorities released a series of audio and video recordings of two separate meetings between a high-ranking Interior Ministry official Erekle Kodua, Patarkatsishvili himself and the head of his pre-election campaign, Valeri Gelbakhiani.
He also confirmed that he had offered Kodua "a huge amount of money" in exchange for defecting from the authorities to avert the possible use of government force against the planned January rallies.
The reports said that the Georgians living in Abkhazia were being intimidated by local Abkhaz officials to prevent them from participating in Georgia's presidential election.
Although Abkhaz officials rejected the accusations,[19] the acting Georgian president Nino Burjanadze warned that attempts were being made to add conflict on the eve of the election.
[22] On November 12, the opposition parties nominated MP Levan Gachechiladze, a leader of the 2007 Georgian demonstrations, as their common candidate.
[27][28] In a December 2007 poll commissioned by Saakashvili's party, the BCG company surveyed 13,000 respondents throughout Georgia and showed that 29.5% of voters were still undecided.
[29] Another survey, also commissioned by Saakashvili's party, was overseen by the U.S. based Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, but conducted by the Georgian ACT group.
This survey involved 1,500 respondents and found that 41% would vote for Saakashvili, followed by Gachechiladze – 11.1%; Patarkatsishvili – 6.5%; Natelashvili – 3.5%; Gamkrelidze – 2.1%; Maisashvili and Sarishvili – less than 1% each.
[31] Early on election day all polling stations were opened with the exception of the highland village of Shatili where heavy snow thwarted the process.
[32] All major national television broadcasters planned to conduct their own exit polls and commissioned seven local research groups.
As announced by the Central Election Committee on 20:00 (16:00 GMT) of January 6, data from 2,605 precincts had been counted and showed Saakashvili in the lead with 51.95% of the votes, and Gachechiladze in second place with 25.14%.
One of the proofs of the involvement of the mentioned agencies is that the electoral headquarters of the ruling party's candidate was in reality led by the Minister of Internal Affairs, who was conducting meetings and assigning local party leaders, heads of police departments, employees of the Constitutional Security and Special Operative Departments, prosecutors, and governors with particular election-related tasks.
[50] Western observers also hailed it as "the first genuinely competitive presidential election, which enabled the Georgian people to express their political choice.
"[53] By contrast, the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the vote and described it as neither free nor fair: "The presidential race was marked by the widespread use of administrative resources, open pressure on opposition candidates and severe limitations on their access to financial and media sources.
Overall, voting was assessed positively by a large majority of IEOM observers, although it was at times disorganized and chaotic in a considerable number of precincts.
Although courts generally carried out open hearings in a professional and thorough manner, some complaints were ruled inadmissible without sound legal basis, and some written judgments did not set out sufficient reasoning.
In addition, the CEC and courts tended to stretch the law beyond reasonable interpretation and without regard to its spirit in favour of the ruling party candidate and public officials.