Tbilisi - President Eduard Shevardnadze dismissed his government yesterday as a furore over media freedoms plunged Georgia into political turmoil.
Parliamentary speaker Mr Zurab Zhvania, the second-ranking politician in the fractious former Soviet state, said he was resigning, but fresh elections did not appear imminent.
Mr Shevardnadze had threatened to quit on Wednesday if deputies punished two top officials caught up in a crisis over free expression after police raided a television station which criticised the President.
However, a spokesman said yesterday Mr Shevardnadze would not step down. "It is absolutely ruled out. It would mean the collapse of the entire country," he said.
Street protesters, who for two days had demanded that the interior minister and prosecutor general follow the security minister's example and resign, chanted anti-Shevardnadze slogans as deputies met in emergency session to discuss the crisis.
Mr Shevardnadze made no immediate public statement explaining why he threw out the government.