Parliamentary Elections were held in Georgia yesterday.

First of all I want to express my gratitude to the Georgian society for their active participation, for their mobilization, for their civil maturity, and for their discipline in the election process.

According to all objective evaluations, these elections were held in an organized manner, generally in a calm atmosphere and we now have objective results.

You will remember that I was against holding elections in spring, but this was the will of the Georgian nation, which they expressed in the January 5th referendum.

We fully respected this will.

Yesterday there was one more triumph for the will of the Georgian nation.

Yesterday Georgian people once again said what they wanted to say.

The multiethnic make-up of our nation population expressed their will about what type of Parliament they wish to have in Georgia for the coming several years.

Despite the fact that I always believed in your judgment, I was honestly surprised by the great support that you have expressed towards us during these elections.

This is the feature of an extraordinary Georgian nation - after four years of very tough, economic, political and legal reforms.

These reforms drove Georgia forward but were rather hard for many Georgian families.

The Georgian people found strength in themselves and supported this course; they have supported the future reforms of Georgia, which includes Georgia's aspirations for Euro-Atlantic integration.

I would like to thank every voter no matter which party they voted for.

The new Georgian parliament will be much more pluralistic and consist of many more parties than the previous one.

It is likely that several parties will make it into the Parliament along with the United National Movement and I look forward, with great joy, to cooperating with them and to engage in dialogue even with the smallest of the fractions, the smallest opposition group and with the opposition in general.

The final results are not yet ready, but there seems to be a high likelihood that the UNM will gain a number close to the constitutional majority.

I would like to inform everyone that whether the United National Movement gets the constitutional majority or not, we are not planning to make any changes to the constitution.

Furthermore, we are not going to make any changes without consulting the entire political spectrum and the opposition.

I would like to assure everyone that we are not going to change the underlying principles of our country no matter what kind of majority vote the UNM gains.

I would also like to state that no matter what kind of representation the opposition parties will have in the Parliament, I will do everything to include them at all levels of the decision making process.

The acitivites of the Parliament and the government in general will be much more transparent and even the smallest interests of the Georgian society will be taken into consideration.

All these political groups represent the wide spectrum of the Georgian society and everyone will have a chance to participate in determining the future fate of Georgia.

I would call on all political parties to respect the will of Georgian people.

I promise our people that we will always protect their will and no one will ever be able to raise their hand against them.

No one should have any illusions about that.

At the same time, I would call on everyone to cooperate with each other.

I would hope that the parliament will have collegial relations with Georgian people and play a stronger role in Georgian society.

We should strengthen the Parliament's control over the government and public control should spread to all branches of government.

This will bring all levels of leadership closer to the people they serve.

Finally, we all - the president, the Parliament, all branches of the government - are in service of the people, our power is given to us by the people and we take it only to serve our nation and its interests.

Thank you very much for your civil activity, for a very important step made by every person who participated in yesterday's elections.

I would like to promise you that Georgia will have a government that will express the will of each of our citizens and will fight for a better future for Georgia.

Thank you very much.

Press Office
of the President of Georgia