No change to Georgia-EU ties after vote: Commissioner

(VILNIUS) - The result of Georgia's watershed parliamentary elections will not lead to any change in the European Union's ties with the ex-Soviet republic, European Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said Tuesday.

Early results from Monday's vote showed Georgia's opposition -- led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia -- leading pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili's long-dominant ruling party.

Piebalgs, who holds the development portfolio in the EU's executive European Commission, said the vote had been a key test and that Brussels' aid to Georgia would be unchanged.

"These are democratic elections," he told AFP during a visit to Lithuania, a former Soviet-rule republic that joined the EU in 2004.

"Well, there have been, at least from what I have seen, some irregularities reported, but not to the scale that challenge the democratic choice of the country," he said.

"So our engagement with Georgia will not change whoever will form the government, because it's a government that has been elected in democratic elections," he added.

Saakashvili came to power in the 2003 Rose Revolution and his two-term rule ends in 2013, meaning he could now become a lame duck until his term ends.

He has made a drive to join the EU as well as NATO a key plank of his policy, but moves have slowed since Georgia's war with giant neighbour Russia in 2008.