By Margarita Antidze

TBILISI (Reuters) - The West will closely watch Georgia's parliamentary election on Wednesday for signs the NATO aspirant is committed to democracy, four months after leader Mikheil Saakashvili won a presidential vote described as flawed.

NATO's European members questioned Saakashvili's democratic credentials after he sent riot police to crush anti-government demonstrators last November. A mixed report from monitors at January's election only partially repaired his tarnished image.

"The democratic conduct of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia ... is crucial to restoring public confidence in the democratic process," a delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe wrote last month.

Georgia lies at the heart of the Caucasus -- which hosts a major pipeline pumping oil from Asia to Europe -- and is at the centre of a battle for regional influence between the United States and Russia.

The U.S-educated Saakashvili became the darling of the West after he swept to power on a tide of popular support in a peaceful 2003 revolution and immediately steered Georgia towards both European Union and NATO membership.

In January's presidential election -- which Saakahvili won with more than 52 percent -- the head of the Western observation mission described the vote as flawed though an accurate representation of the will of the people.

But the opposition said the presidential election had been rigged and was unfair -- allegations it has since repeated.

"We have the support of people, while the ruling party uses all its power and the state budget for its vote," Levan Gachechiladze, head of the main opposition coalition, said ahead of the May 21 vote.

The red and white colors of Saakashvili's United National Movement party certainly dominate central Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, which has a population of around 4.5 million people and is about the size of Ireland.

LEADERSHIP

In an interim report released on Friday, the main Western election monitoring group said it had received allegations of intimidation, illegal campaigning by officials and the use of administrative resources to support Saakashvili.

"Several allegations of intimidation could be substantiated," the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's election monitoring body said.

"(But) The President and the Interior Ministry have issued strong statements calling on public officials and law enforcement bodies not to interfere in the election process."

At an April meeting in Romania NATO declined to back the United States which wants Georgia admitted into the military alliance quickly.

Georgia is locked in an increasingly tense row with Russia over the two rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia which broke away from Tbilisi after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. European NATO members were wary of further angering Russia.

But NATO has also said aspirant countries need to match certain ideals before joining the alliance which include a commitment to Western-style democracy.

Opinion polls ahead of the vote suggest Saakashvili's party may also struggle to retain its majority although it will almost certainly remain the biggest party in the 150-seat parliament.

"The ruling party will win and that's why protests will take place for sure, but they won't last for a long," Gocha Tskitishvili, an analyst, said.

"We've seen it all before."

Saakashvili's popularity has waned because of a perceived arrogance. But the opposition has splintered and its leaders lack charisma.

There are few policy differences between Saakashvili and his main opponents and who have run campaigns which attack him personally rather than present radically different policies.

Under the Georgian constitution the president has wide-ranging powers. Parliament, though, has to vote on the government's budget.

Georgia has been working on transforming its economy to make make it more attractive to Western investors. In 2007 Georgia earned around $1.5 billion in direct foreign investment, compared to $1 billion in 2006.

(Reporting and writing by Margarita Antidze and James Kilner in Moscow; Editing by Richard Balmforth)