MIKHAIL SAAKASHVILI may have won Georgia’s presidential election on Sunday, but it is his green-eyed Dutch wife, Sandra, who has captured the hearts of a nation with her flawless Georgian, unassuming style and glamorous looks.

Polyglot, investment consultant, mother and now First Lady, Sandra Roelofs is also seen as the driving force behind her husband’s rise to power as architect of the “Rose Revolution” that toppled Eduard Shevardnadze. She was by Mr Saakashvili’s side throughout his election campaign, greeting crowds on the subway and in villages, even playing the electric organ on a television chat show.

When Mr Saakashvili, 36, claimed his victory at a news conference on Sunday, he beckoned her to join him on the podium. Stepping up to the microphone, she thanked his supporters in English and then in fluent Georgian — to the delight of local reporters. Prompted by a clearly proud husband, she continued in perfect French and then in Russian.

“I am very happy that . . . all our hopes came true,” Ms Roelofs, 35, said. “It is a big responsibility for us. Misha can work together with the people. He is ready. He is full of energy and hope. He is going to create a new world.”

Ms Roelofs had similar ideals when she met a brilliant young Georgian studying international law in Strasbourg in 1993. At the time she was planning to go to Somalia to be an aid worker, but Mr Saakashvili, known for his passionate temperament and way with words, persuaded her to go with him to New York, where he continued his studies at Columbia University. They married soon after.

When he returned to Georgia to enter politics as one of President Shevardnadze’s protégés, she followed him and found work with the Red Cross and Dutch Consulate. She soon earned the respect of her new compatriots by learning to speak not just Georgian but one of its dialects, Megrelian, as well.

“She is a talented girl,” Lili Kobaladze, a 72-year-old former economist, said. “She came to Georgia and was able to learn our languages so quickly. You can see she is an open-hearted person, like her husband.”

Now, as well as looking after her young son, Eduard, she advises foreign companies trying to invest in Georgia and runs her own charitable foundation, which helps orphanages and old people’s homes.

Her popularity is enhanced by her photogenic looks. Among Georgian women she has become a celebrity; her outfits and lifestyle are the talk of the town.

Even some Georgian men, usually models of machismo, go wobbly at the knees about her. Gogi Mamatsashvili, 55, a lawyer, said: “She is a very cute woman and she communicates well with the people. She is very elegant.”

Ms Roelofs has also impressed Georgians by embracing their traditional family values while retaining her Dutch liberalism. In a recent interview in a Russian newspaper, she said that her husband’s work meant that now he had little time for his family. “But what he is doing for his son and for his homeland is so important that we can forgive him,” she said.

She has also said that she will keep living in the family’s modest flat in central Tbilisi, even though the family can now move into a luxurious government residence.

Such humility is a novelty for a people accustomed to corrupt officials living lives of luxury at their expense. And it has burnished Mr Saakashvili’s credentials as a young reformer who can root out corruption, attract foreign investment and integrate Georgia with the West.

To Georgians, her many talents reflect the qualities of Kartlis Deda, “the Mother of Georgia”, whose giant statue overlooks Tbilisi, a bowl of wine in one hand to welcome friends, a drawn sword in the other to ward off enemies.

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