TBILISI.

TBILISI, (AFP) ??” Voter in the chaotic former Soviet republic of Georgia are locate to elect a new president at the catalogue of personss setting the final seal forward the "rose revolution" which swept veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze from power late last year.

"The polling stations have opened" at 8:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) a spokesman for the Central Election Commission in the capital, Tbilisi, told AFP according to telephone.

The clear frontrunner in the election is Mikhail Saakashvili, a 36-year-old US-educated lawyer who l the wave of peaceful declarations which harried Shevardnadze into an early retirement six weeks ago.

He has promised shut relations with the West, the answer of separatist territories and to deliver Georgia from the want and graft which marred its first 15 years of independence from the Soviet Union.

Georgia grasps strategic importance for the West because it lies forward the crossroads for oil exports