Officials: He's Back

It's around 0500 here in Tbilisi, and the head of the Georgian election commission has just told us that Mikheil Saakashvili has been re-elected as the country's president, based on final preliminary results. Since the political crisis began in September, we've had allegations of murder plots and conspiracies to overthrow the government, mass demonstrations, riot police gassing and beating protesters, special forces shutting down the country's most popular television station (which then reopens after an intervention by a Polish dissident, but is shut down once again as its staff strike for genuine independence), a series of covertly-recorded tapes supposedly proving dastardly plans and unsavoury connections, the arrest and exile of a former senior minister, accusations of ballot-rigging competing with assertions that Georgia has passed a 'democratic test', as well as wild threats and even wilder accusations made even more murky by ubiquitous conspiracy theories. But is it over yet? After all that's happened in such a short space of time, that seems doubtful.