President Saakashvili said that although his ruling party was close to securing two-third majority in the new parliament, he would remain committed to his earlier pledge to closely cooperate with the opposition.

“Even I was astonished by the big level of support which we got in these parliamentary elections,” Saakashvili said in a televised address released early morning on Thursday, May 22. “There are no final figures yet but there is a very high probability that the National Movement will get the number of seats in parliament that would be close to a constitutional majority.”

With slightly over 18% of votes counted, the Central Election Commission said this morning, the ruling National Movement Party was leading the polls with 62.8%, followed by the nine-party opposition bloc with 13.6%; the Christian-Democratic Party – 8%; the Labor Party – 6.1%; the Republican Party – 3.7%; other seven parties and election blocs received 1% of less each.

“Regardless whether we have constitutional majority or not, we are not planning and we will not make any constitutional amendments without participation of the opposition,” Saakashvili said. “Everyone should be calm in this regard; we will not touch fundamental principles of the country [unilaterally], whatever representation we have in the new parliament. We will do our best to secure for the opposition more levers of control over the government and to have more say; as well as to have the possibility to take part in the rule of the country.”

He also called on all the political parties “to respect the will of the Georgian people” and warned that “we will protect their [people’s] will and no one can raise their hand against the will of the Georgian people and no one has to have any illusion in this regard.”