GEORGIA….

Eduard Shevardnadze, 72, won another term as president, taking 80 percent of the vote in the election on April 9. Jumber Patiashvili, first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party in Soviet times, was the strongest of sixteen challengers, with 15 percent. Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe complained that election officials throughout the country clearly favored the incumbent. Irregularities like stuffing the ballot box and jiggering the tallies may not have affected the outcome, but they tarnished the result and Shevardnadze’s reputation.