Georgia’s presidential vote too close to call: Exit poll

Bloomberg

Georgia’s final election for president was too close to call and a runoff appeared likely, according to an independent exit poll on Rustavi 2 television.
The poll by Edison Research showed Grigol Vashadze of the Strength in Unity grouping of opposition parties and Salome Zurabishvili, backed by the ruling Georgian Dream party, each with 40 percent. Davit Bakradze of the European Georgia party, had 10 percent.
The Georgian Dream party said its own exit poll suggested Zurabishvili had done enough to avoid a runoff and be declared the winner.
There are 25 candidates, including Zurabishvili, a French-born former foreign minister who could be the first woman president elected in a former Soviet republic outside the Baltic states.
Vashadze has also served as foreign minister, while Bakradze finished second in the 2013 presidential election.
“You will see what kind of a different president from the others I will be,” Zurabishvili told reporters outside a polling station in Tbilisi earlier Sunday.
The winner must secure 50 percent of the votes to avoid a second round.
The new president will serve a six-year term, instead of the current five, under constitutional changes which will shift Georgia to a parliamentary system of government. From 2024, the president will be chosen by a 300-member electoral college.