MOSCOW: Georgia announced new presidential elections yesterday and annulled the flawed vote that led to the ousting of veteran leader Mr Edward Shevardnadze.
However the country's acting head said a looming financial crisis could derail plans to stabilise the country.
Ms Nino Burdzhanadze sounded her warning as leaders of three rebel Georgian regions agreed to meet to try and avert what they called a possible attempt by Mr Shevardnadze's vanquishers to assert nationwide authority by force.
Ms Burdzhanadze, the imposing lawyer who helped to rally the protests that forced Mr Shevardnadze to resign on Sunday, said a presidential poll would be held on January 4th.
The parliament elected in 1999 will serve until sometime next year after the Supreme Court cancelled the results of this month's rigged poll.
"The purpose is to overcome this difficult situation," Ms Burdzhanadze (39) said of plans to elect Mr Shevardnadze's successor. "Each of us carries a huge responsibility, but I hope we will begin a new era of our country's development."
Ms Burdzhanadze led the opposition to the former Soviet foreign minister along with Mr Mikhail Saakashvili, a US-educated lawyer.
He said supporters of the two politicians had agreed to field a single candidate in the presidential elections. On Monday Mr Saakashvili's party said that he intended to run for leadership.
Whoever emerges to lead the country's five million people will inherit a country in dire financial straits and riven with ethnic strife. This follows 11 years under a regime that critics lambasted for pervasive corruption and economic mismanagement.
The Caucasus nation already receives about $150 million in aid each year from abroad, and has $1.8 billion of foreign debt.
Mr Jonathan Dunn, the International Monetary Fund's representative in Georgia, said he was due to meet Ms Burdzhanadze today.
"We want to see a responsible economic plan," he said. "The revenue performance of the state has been very weak in the last months; there is a lot of tax evasion, a lot of corruption."
With winter setting in, Georgians are bracing for another bout of power cuts caused by crumbling infrastructure.
The leaders of secessionist regions in Georgia said they would meet in Moscow to co-ordinate their approach to the former opposition leaders in Tbilisi.
Mr Edward Kokoity, president of the self-proclaimed South Ossetian republic that wants to join Russia, said he feared a repeat of bloodshed that marred Georgia's first years of post-Soviet independence in the early 1990s.
"(They) have made statements regarding using force to resolve the issue of South Ossetia and Abkhazia," he said of Mr Saakashvili and Ms Burdzhanadze.
With Russian support, Abkhazia won de facto independence from Tbilisi in 1993, but like South Ossetia has failed to secure international recognition.
Another Black Sea province, Adzharia, has declared a state of emergency and closed its border with the rest of Georgia. Its leader, Mr Aslan Abashidze, is a fierce opponent of Mr Saakashvili.
"All the armed forces in Adzharia are under the control of the Adzharian autonomous republic, and they will strictly fulfil their commitments," Mr Abashidze said.
