Presidential elections were held in Georgia on 5 January 2008, moved forward from autumn 2008 by President Mikheil Saakashvili after the 2007 demonstrations. A referendum on when to hold the legislative elections was held at the same date. On 26 November 2007 the President's office announced that Georgia would hold another simultaneous referendum on NATO membership. Saakashvili was declared a winner with 53.7% of the votes despite the accusation of electoral fraud by the Georgian opposition. International observers welcomed the elections as "the first genuinely competitive presidential election" in the history of Georgia, and said, despite observed irregularities, the elections generally met the democratic standards. Background In a November 2007 pre-election poll held by the weekly Mteli Kvira, the opposition candidate Gachechiladze defeated Saakashvili by 2% (18% to 16%). In a December 2007 poll commissioned by Saakashvili's party, the BCG company surveyed of 13,000 respondents throughout Georgia showed that 29.5% of voters were still undecided. 36.7% said they would vote for Saakashvili, followed by Gachechiladze with 9.7%; Patarkatsishvili – 4.7%; Gamkrelidze – 3%; Natelashvili – 2.5%; Maisashvili and Sarishvili had less than 1% each. One percent said they would vote for none of the candidates. The survey showed that 63.5% of those who had decided to vote for one of the candidates would vote for Saakashvili, followed by Gachechiladze and Patarkatsishvili with 16.7% and 8.1%, respectively. Another survey, also commissioned by Saakashvili's party, was overseen by the U.S. based Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research but conducted by the Georgian ACT group. This survey involved 1,500 respondents, 41% would vote for Saakashvili, followed by Gachechiladze – 11.1%; Patarkatsishvili – 6.5%; Natelashvili – 3.5%; Gamkrelidze – 2.1%; Maisashvili and Sarishvili – less than 1% each. 20.6% were undecided and 2.3% said they wouldn’t vote for any candidate. Of those who have decided to vote for one of the candidates, 64% said they would vote for Saakashvili, followed by Gachechiladze and Patarkatsishvili with 17% and 10%, respectively. On December 23, 2007, the pro-opposition Imedi TV announced that the organization called Dialogue for Development of Democracy conducted public opinion research between December 17 and December 21. The survey showed, that 22.1% of the 2,100 surveyed would support Levan Gachechiladze, a presidential candidate backed by the nine-party opposition coalition, followed by Mikheil Saakashvili with 20.3%; Badri Patarkatsishvili (co-owner of Imedi TV) – 19.1%; Shalva Natelashvili, the leader of the Labor Party – 6.5%; Davit Gamkrelidze, the