UPDATE 2-French-born ex-diplomat is frontrunner as Georgia picks president

Georgians voted for a new president on Sunday in an election with two former foreign ministers as the frontrunners, including a former French career diplomat who would be the first female leader of an ex-Soviet state outside the Baltics.

The ruling Georgian Dream party is backing Salome Zurabishvili, 66, who was born to Georgian emigre parents in France and who served as French ambassador to Georgia before becoming Georgia's foreign minister from 2004-2005.

Supporters say she would bring international stature to the presidency; opponents criticise her for statements that appeared to blame Georgia for war with Russia in 2008, remarks about minorities that some saw as xenophobic, and unsteady command of the Georgian language, which she speaks with an accent.

Constitutional changes have weakened the power of the presidency, putting most authority in the office of prime minister.

But the post is still seen as important for the image abroad of a country strongly oriented towards the West and fearful of Russia, which invaded a decade ago and backs separatists in two breakaway regions.

The ruling party said Zurabishvili was holding a "very strong lead" in the election, citing information that came from the party activists.

"We can make preliminary assumptions - the candidate that we support is in a strong lead," Mamuka Mdinaradze, Georgian Dream parliamentary faction head, told a news conference, a couple of hours before the polls close at 8 p.m. (1600 GMT).

Exit polls are due shortly after the polls close.

Zurabishvili's main opponent, Grigol Vashadze, 60, is running on behalf of a new platform of 11 opposition parties led by former president Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM). He held the post of foreign minister from 2008-2012.

He said the opposition was winning with "fantastic results".

"Our homeland has never been so close to victory as today," Vashadze told a news conference.

A second round will be held if no candidate secures more than 50 per cent of the vote on Sunday.

Sunday's election is the last in which the president will be selected by popular vote; after that, presidents will be picked by an electoral college of 300 lawmakers and regional officials.

Zurabishvili was invited into Georgian politics by Saakashvili, who gave her Georgian citizenship to take up the Foreign Ministry post but sacked her after a year.

She then set up her own opposition political party, Georgia's Way, which she led until 2010 before temporarily quitting politics and returning to France.

She was elected to Georgia's parliament in 2016 with the backing of Georgian Dream, a party controlled by Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country's richest man, whose critics say the rules it from behind the scenes.

The country of 3.7 million people is Washington's strategic ally in the Caucasus region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and hopes eventually to join the EU and NATO. Pipelines carrying Caspian oil and gas to Europe run across its territory.

Opinion polls suggest that the two frontrunners are followed by David Bakradze, a former parliamentary speaker, who has been nominated by the opposition European Georgia Party, which split from the UNM in 2017.

Twenty-two other candidates lag far behind the leading three.