Thousands of Georgians massed in the capital's "Freedom Square" today to back their leader who called for police and troops to step aside for a "bloodless, velvet revolution" to depose President Mr Eduard Shevardnadze.
Western powers have called for a peaceful resolution to the unrest in the impoverished former Soviet Caucasian state of five million. Any trouble could threaten a planned oil pipeline through Georgia from neighbouring Azerbaijan to Turkey.
Main opposition leader Mr Mikhail Saakashvili urged troops and riot police, who have cordoned off streets around parliament and Mr Shevardnadze's office, to step back in a stand-off that began with a disputed election on November 2nd.
"Shevardnadze's regime ends tonight," Mr Saakashvili told his supporters. "It is better for him to flee, otherwise tomorrow we will trample his regime." "I'd like to appeal to police and the armed forces, there is a bloodless, democratic, peaceful, velvet revolution going on in our country and for you to take the side of the people," he told reporters shortly afterwards.
Thousands of cheering Mr Saakashvili supporters took their rally just short of a pro-government rally near parliament and poured into a square where a statue of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was toppled in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell. Outside parliament, an equal number of government supporters watched folk-dancing on a large screen. Analysts warned of violence if the two groups met.
Protests have convulsed Georgia since the parliamentary election, which the opposition says the authorities rigged. Official results yesterday gave the two top spots to Shevardnadze's allies.
With average salaries for state workers at just $20 a month, early protests over electoral abuses have snowballed into wider calls for Mr Shevardnadze to quit over plunging living standards, corruption and the loss of territory to separatists.