By the BBC's Robert Parsons

The talk in Georgia has been of revolution - not the violent kind, but a revolution by constitutional means.

All week, demonstrators gathered outside parliament in the centre of Tbilisi to curse Eduard Shevardnadze and demand his resignation.

The Georgian president seemed to teeter on the brink. His political opponents thought they had him cornered, but the White Fox, as he is popularly known in his homeland, slipped their trap.

A nation's patience is almost exhausted; you can see it in the faces on the street.

A normally hospitable people, with a reputation for a great joie de vivre, is at the end of its tether. Anger simmers beneath a superficial calm.

Winter is just a month away and the electricity cuts have begun again, living standards have been in free fall for 10 years and continue to slide, ethnic conflicts in the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia remain unresolved and corruption gnaws at the fabric of society.

Georgians have lost their faith in everything but themselves and their immediate families.

Little wonder. While university professors struggle by on a pittance, government ministers line their pockets and build obscenely ostentatious palaces on the edge of town.

The TV raid galvanised a disheartened public

The privately owned Rustavi-2 television has won praise from all and sundry here for exposing what the state-run media prefers to ignore. But last week it paid the price.

Security police raided the station, allegedly to investigate its finances. It proved the straw that broke the camel's back.

Thousands came to the station to give it their support.

Most of them were young and educated - Georgia's future.

To begin with they had just one demand: The dismissal of the security minister and the detested minister of internal affairs, Kakha Targamadze.

By supporting democracy, I've made it possible for the students to come out on the streets and state their case

Eduard Shevardnadze

Rich and powerful, he is thought by many to hold compromising material on President Shevardnadze.

When the Georgian president dismissed the security minister but refused to abandon Mr Targamadze the rumours grew stronger and Mr Shevardnadze's prestige plummeted.

Opinion polls showed only 8% of Georgians supported him.

The crowds grew bigger and the demands broadened to include not the resignation of the entire government and of the president himself. Mr Shevardnadze caved in and sacked the ministers.

But when I met him this week in the fortress that is now his office, he didn't look like a man facing defeat.

For the moment his position looks secure.

As he spoke to me, there was a moment when he suddenly loomed forward in his chair, bunched his right hand in a fist and beat the air. This was my victory, he said.

Mr Shevardnadze's popularity has plummeted

"By supporting democracy, I've made it possible for the students to come out on the streets and state their case."

What about resigning, I asked. He thought for a moment and gave a throaty laugh.

"There are only three circumstances in which I would step down.

"I could go of my own free will, but I won't be doing that because I am the democratically elected leader of my country and God knows who would be elected if there were new elections.

I would go if I died, but believe me, I have no intention of doing so just yet

Eduard Shevardnadze

"I would go if parliament impeached me but it has no grounds for doing so; and I would go if I died, but believe me, I have no intention of doing so just yet."

His face creased with laughter.

And the truth is he has got it right - or at least half right.

"My people may not love me," he told me, "but they know that they need me at this moment."

It's true, Georgians do fear what would happen if Mr Shevardnadze were to go.

There are other politicians in the wings - some of them young and ambitious like the ex-Justice Minister, Misha Saakashvili, who is the students' favourite. But many Georgians distrust his populist style and worry about his lack of experience.

But Eduard Shevardnadze is still half wrong. He says he needs three years to turn things around.

But he has been asking for time ever since he was first elected and there are few Georgians left who still believe he has solutions to the country's problems.

The demonstrations will almost certainly begin again and the protestors on the street have already felt their strength.