Eduard Shevardnadze

Born 1928 1972-1985: Georgian Party boss 1985-1991: Soviet foreign minister 1992 onwards: Georgian head of state

Demonstrators on the streets of Tbilisi have been calling for his resignation, and the young politician who was once his protege and closest ally, Zurab Zhvania, has turned against him.

The irregularities that tainted his re-election in April 2000, and his failure to tackle rampant corruption or clear the cronies from his government have lost him many friends at home and abroad.

Mr Zhvania, who resigned as speaker of parliament on Thursday, pointed out that the trigger for the latest crisis was a raid on the country's most outspoken television centre, but that the reasons for the demonstrations go much deeper.

Paradoxically, Georgia enjoys greater press freedom than any of its southern or eastern neighbours.

It is pro-western and broadly democratic, with a parliament that does more than rubber stamp executive decisions, and the beginnings of a genuine civil society.

Mr Shevardnadze put a halt to the anarchy that threatened to engulf the country when he returned from Moscow and took over as leader in 1992.

He won huge respect for his bravery under fire during the conflict in the breakaway region of Abkhazia the following year, and came within a hair's breadth of being killed or captured.

But the country is still poor and divided, and the Abkhazia conflict came close to re-igniting this month, underlining the fact that a resolution is as far away as ever.

Pervasive corruption remains the biggest problem, as does Mr Shevardnadze's apparent inability to tackle it, or to take on the big commercial interests that block reforms.

The flamboyant leader of one of the country's biggest business clans, widely accused of fuel smuggling, is Mr Shevardnadze's nephew, Nugzar, who drives around in a Rolls Royce or an armoured Mercedes.

Georgian media say his is not the only business clan with close connections to the Shevardnadze family.

Even before this crisis the media were speculating about the possibility of a coup or a forced resignation before Mr Shevardnadze's term runs out in 2005.

Constitutional reform

Mr Zhvania is seeking to use the crisis to achieve reforms that would put political power in the hands of the government, rather than the president, creating the post of prime minister in the process.

Mr Shevardnadze could be forced to quit

"From today an absolutely new period of development is going to begin in Georgia, though I hope it will be peaceful development," he told Russian television on Thursday.

The 73-year-old president - who claims with some justification to have ended the Cold War, liberated central Europe, reunified Germany and democratised the USSR - once looked likely to die a martyr's death after two armed attempts on his life: one bomb, and one assault on his motorcade.

It now seems more likely that his political career will fizzle out, either in 2005 or before.

Georgians have served notice that they are looking to a younger generation for a more vigorous leader ready to take on the crusade against crime that they have long been waiting for.