President-elect Mikhail Saakashvili vowed on Saturday to restore unity to Georgia as he prepared to take power in the small Caucasus nation riven by corruption, poverty and separatist tensions. Saakashvili, a 36-year-old U.S.-educated lawyer, won a huge mandate to reform the former Soviet state in a landslide election victory this month after leading a bloodless people\'s revolution in November. He will be sworn in on Sunday. \"Some people do not want Georgia to exist on the world\'s map but they won\'t achieve their goal,\" Saakashvili told a crowd of thousands at a monastery 160 miles west of the capital Tbilisi. \"We should unite, this is my life\'s goal,\" he said at the tomb of a king who heralded Georgia\'s medieval golden age. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who will attend Saakashvili\'s inauguration before visiting Moscow, said he would urge Russia to remove its military bases from Georgia, where the United States also has a small military presence. And Saakashvili said he wanted to balance warm ties with Washington with a better relationship with the Kremlin. \"We are a very small country and we need to survive in a very complicated geo-political environment. I don\'t want to turn this country into a battlefield between different superpowers,\" Saakashvili told foreign reporters in Tbilisi. \"I am not pro-American or pro-Russian, I am pro-Georgian.\" Saakashvili received the blessing of Georgian church head Patriarch Ilya II in the Gelati\'s Georgian Orthodox church. The site was chosen for its symbolism. It was built by King David IV in the 12th century, known by Georgians as \"The Builder\" for unifying the country and constructing cities, roads and bridges. \"Standing at David\'s tomb we must say Georgia will unite, Georgia will become strong and will restore its integrity,\" Saakashvili said. \"I want all of us to do it together and I promise not to become a source of shame for you.\" He has acknowledged he faces a huge task in a country of 4.5 million where, under his predecessor Eduard Shevardnadze, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank curtailed their programs because of widespread corruption. \"Government officials should tighten their belts, just like ordinary people do,\" Saakashvili said. He has already said the police will \"not spare bullets\" pursuing criminals and promised a crackdown on corruption in public life. (Reuters)