TBILISI, Jan 5: Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili’s camp declared victory in a snap presidential election on Saturday after a disputed exit poll showed him narrowly winning in a first round.

“This clearly indicates the elections were successful and the next president of Georgia is Mikheil Saakashvili,” campaign spokesman Davit Bakradze said.

“We call on all our opponents to accept the results of this election.” Cheers broke out in Saakashvili’s headquarters in the capital Tbilisi and supporters danced with red-white Georgian flags to the pounding beat of a campaign song.

The exit poll, based on interim figures from the vote in this ex-Soviet country, found Saakashvili was set to win 52.5 per cent, crossing the 50-per cent barrier for victory in one round of voting.

The margin of error was two to three percent, organisers said in a live broadcast on Georgian Public Television.

Saakashvili’s nearest challenger, wine entrepreneur Levan Gachechiladze, got 28.5 per cent, according to the poll.

Official results were expected to start coming in only during the night.

Opposition candidates said the poll could not be trusted because the four television channels paying for the poll are allegedly pro-government, something the organisers of the poll denied.

Saakashvili, 40, faced six challengers Saturday in the biggest test of his authority since he swept to power in the 2003 Rose Revolution.

He called the election a year early in response to violent clashes between police and protestors in November — violence that badly dented his image as one of the ex-Soviet Union’s leading democratic reformers.

Gachechiladze ally Levan Berdzenishvili said that the exit poll could not be correct. However he appeared to back away from threatening major street protests.

“Saakashvili’s 52 per cent are not credible, but we have to wait for the final results,” he said.

Any “protest must have a legal character. I don’t see the need for emotional protests,” he added.

Saakashvili voted earlier in Tbilisi, appealing for Georgians to “to show the whole world that Georgia is a vibrant democracy”.

“We are committed to... Georgia as a beacon of democracy,” he said.

But the opposition claimed there were multiple violations of electoral procedures.

Georgians — including five of the six presidential challengers — overwhelmingly back Saa-kashvili’s push to end centuries of Russian dominance and to integrate with the West.

A huge “yes” vote was expected in a non-binding referendum also held Saturday on joining Nato.

Yet many are disenchanted with Saakashvili, who says the November crackdown and subsequent nine-day state of emergency had prevented a coup plot by billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, a candidate in Saturday’s election.

Hundreds of foreign election observers were deployed.

A report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expected Sunday on the conduct of the election could be crucial in determining how much support there is for opposition street protests.

Washington, the European Union and former imperial master Russia are watching closely, mindful of Georgia’s growing strategic importance.

Major US-backed oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea to Turkey run through Georgia, bypassing Russia to the north and Iran to the south.

Saakashvili has also defied Russian pressure in applying for Nato membership.

Moscow punished Georgia’s pro-western course with sweeping economic sanctions in 2006 and also supports armed rebels who control two separatist regions of Georgia — Abkhazia and South Ossetia.—AFP