The 36-year-old US-educated lawyer will become Europe's youngest elected head of state once he assumes power in the former Soviet republic where Russia and the United States are both vying for influence.

With ballots from 14 percent of polling stations counted, Saakashvili had received 96.14 percent of the vote, election commission chief Zurab Chiaberashvili said in televised comments.

On Sunday night, a reliable private exit poll gave Saakashvili 86 percent of the vote, while none of his five rivals obtained even double digits.

Chiaberashvili had said that 1,780,934 people had voted, a turnout of 83 percent in the Caucasus nation of five million people. "That is a very high figure for Georgian elections."

Saakashvili spearheaded a wave of protests that forced the resignation of Shevardnadze -- the 75-year-old best known in the West for helping end the Cold War as Soviet foreign minister.

Moments after polling stations closed on Sunday night, the beaming frontrunner was already claiming victory.

"I want to thank the whole Georgian nation," he said. "It is not just my victory but the victory of the Georgian people."

He laid out a bold programme of reform to lift the country out of the quagmire of chaos and poverty that characterised Shevardnadze's rule and ultimately turned his people against him.

Saakashvili said his priorities would be waging war on corruption, rescuing the economy, bringing separatist territories back under control, embracing Europe and the United States and mending fractious relations with neighbouring Russia.

His first steps as president will be watched closely by both Russia and the United States, rivals for influence over the small but strategically important country.

Georgia is a crossroads for the export of crude oil from the massive new fields of the Caspian Sea to international markets.

Sunday's election was billed by the international community as a test of Georgia's new rulers' democratic credentials and appeared to have passed muster.

"The international mission concluded that the presidential election did demonstrate notable progress on previous elections in this country," Bruce George, president of the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who headed the 450-strong observer mission, told a press conference.

"The authorities showed the political will to conduct democratic elections," he said.

Speaking on Russia's NTV television channel late Monday, Saakashvili explained the huge percentage of the popular vote he received by the fact that many of his most serious potential rivals chose not to run.

"Many serious candidates did not take part in the vote. People's expectations are so high that it may have scared some of them away," he said.

He said he was particularly pleased by the fact that some of Georgia's autonomous or breakaway regions, where voter turnout expectations had been low, had taken an active part in the poll.

"The whole of (the autonomous region of) Adjara took part in the vote, and 60 percent of voters in (the breakaway region of) South Ossetia took part," he said, adding that he had not yet received results for Abkhazia, Georgia's other separatist territory.

Once he assumes power, Saakashvili will face an enormous task in running one of Europe's most dysfunctional states.

The government is broke, corruption is endemic, Georgia's infrastructure is in tatters and two regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are controlled by separatist rebels.

Saakashvili's supporters say he is up to the task but detractors say he lacks experience and that his populist style is not suited to running a country.

"This election was the first test, there are many more ahead," Tbilisi's 24 Hours daily said in an editorial Monday.

Saakashvili, who speaks fluent French and English, as well as Georgian, Russian and Ukrainian, studied at Columbia University law school in the United States and briefly served as a minister in Shevardnadze's government.

He quit to form an opposition party, and when a November 2, 2003, parliamentary election was widely deemed to have been rigged by the government, he gathered thousands of people to protest in Tbilisi.

In the defining moment of the protests, Saakashvili barged his way into the parliament chamber with his supporters, forcing Shevardnadze to flee. The president resigned the next day.

Saakashvili and many of the opposition protesters carried roses, which came to symbolise their peaceful revolution.

TERRA.WIRE