Tens of thousands of people massed in Georgia's capital today to protest against President Mikheil Saakashvili, who they said had stolen victory for his ruling party in last week's parliamentary election.
Mr Saakashvili, who presents his country as a rare beacon of democracy in the former Soviet Union, hopes to convince the West to defy Russian objections and offer Georgia membership of the Nato military alliance. He also aims to join the European Union.
But the US-educated lawyer's democratic credentials are under scrutiny after he used riot police to crush protests last November, and the opposition say he has rigged presidential and parliamentary elections.
After an Independence Day military parade, supporters of the main opposition bloc marched through central Tbilisi and massed in front of the parliament building, scene of protests in 2003 that brought Mr Saakashvili to power.
"We want these elections to be cancelled and we want this parliament to be abolished," Salome Zurabishvili, a former foreign minister who fell out with Mr Saakashvili and is now one of the opposition leaders, told the crowd.
"Otherwise we will stay here and we won't allow this parliament to work."
Opposition leaders said more than 100,000 peple attended the rally. Other reports suggested the crowd was around 40,000.
Most opposition parties joined the rally.
Official results show Mr Saakashvili's United National Movement won more than two thirds of parliament's 150 seats, or a constitutional majority, cementing his hold on power.