Bush congratulates Georgian president on vote win

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Monday congratulated Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili for winning a presidential election that the opposition has said was rigged.

Saakashvili, a U.S. ally, won the January 5 presidential election in his small Caucasus state with more than half of the vote, according to official figures.

Bush called Saakashvili while taking off from Dubai for Riyadh as he toured the Middle East, U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters.

"The president, just as we took off, called President-elect Saakashvili of Georgia, congratulated him on his electoral victory," Hadley said while aboard Air Force One presidential jet.

Saakashvili called the snap vote last year after crushing opposition protests and raiding the country's biggest opposition television station.

Georgia's election commission said Saakashvili won 53.38 percent of the vote but thousands of Georgians protested against the result. Western observers said the vote was broadly fair.

"Saakashvili was appreciative of the president's call. He indicated that he had reached out to the opposition and was going to try and build a consensus during his -- what will be, obviously, his last term as president," Hadley said.

Saakashvili became the darling of the West after rising to power on the back of the 2003 "Rose Revolution" protests and pushing the former Soviet state towards NATO and European Union membership, to the ire of Moscow.

But NATO and many European countries criticized Saakashvili's handling of opposition protests last November after he ordered police to fire tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators and imposed a state of emergency.