leader of the New Rights Party – 4.9%; Giorgi Maisashvili, leader of Party of Future – 1.1% and Irina Sarishvili, leader of Party of Hope – 0.2%. The survey reported that 21.7% remained undecided. A survey, commissioned by the Saakashvili’s campaign from the U.S.-based Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, was published on January 3, 2008. It showed that Saakashvili had the support of 42 percent among all Georgian adults, compared to 19 percent for Levan Gachechiladze, 11 percent for Badri Patarkatsishvili, 5 percent for Shalva Natelashvili, 4 percent for David Gamkrelidze, and 1 percent for Gia Maisashvili; 2 percent would not vote or vote blank, and 16 percent were undecided. The survey reported only a minority of Georgian voters felt the presidential elections would not be fair. All major national television broadcasters plan to conduct their own exit polls and have commissioned seven local research groups. In late December, Patarkatsishvili, who had pledged his financial support to the November rallies, became embroiled in a major controversy. The authorities accused him of trying to bribe an election official to claim voting fraud and released a series of audio and video recordings of the two separate meetings of the high-ranking Georgian Interior Ministry official Erekle Kodua with Patarkatsishvili and the head of his pre-election campaign Valeri Gelbakhiani. According to these materials, Patarkatsishvili tried to bribe Kodua to take part in what the Georgian officials described as an attempted coup d'état on January 6, 2008, the date of the scheduled presidential elections. The plan included to stage a mass manifestation against the government and to "neutralize" the Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili. Patarkatsishvili confirmed that he met with Kedua in London, but denied the bribe was in connection to a coup plot. He claimed instead his intention was to uncover official plans to rig the election. He also confirmed that he offered Kedua "a huge amount of money" in exchange for defecting from the authorities to avert the possible use of government force against the planned January rallies. On December 26, 2007, several leading journalists defected from Imedi TV, co-owned by Patarkatsishvili. Later that day, the television station’s management announced that Imedi TV temporarily suspended broadcasts until the station's "legal status in respect of ownership is clarified." "By doing so we are distancing from dirty political games", said Giorgi Targamadze, head of the Imedi TV's political programs. The opposition politicians formerly allied with him also made