Tens of thousands of government critics are gathering in the Georgian capital and other major cities to demand the resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili and to call for early elections.

TBILISI, January 5 (RIA Novosti) - Mikheil Saakashvili has won Georgia's presidential election in the first round with 52.5% of the vote, according to early exit polls organized by Georgian TV companies.

The Georgian opposition is holding a new rally in Tbilisi, urging people to unite against violence. Some 4,000 people have gathered on Rike Square in Tbilisi, in the first mass demonstration after police cracked down on protestors on November 7.

Saakashvili, the president of nation of Georgia, said in his televised address to the nation in Tbilisi: "I have a proposal to hold presidential elections on January 5, 2008."

After months of tension and more than a week of strikes, the Georgian Government has locked down the country's capital, declaring a 15-day state of emergency.

Democracy is just nothing when it’s a political crisis. Security forces clashed with anti-government protesters in Tbilisi on Wednesday, driving them from the street in front of parliament and breaking up another rally.

Thousands of opposition supporters protested for the fourth consecutive day in Georgia's capital on Monday demanding the president's resignation and earlier elections.

Around 100,000 opposition supporters, more than during the 2003 'rose revolution,' are rallying in front of Tbilisi's parliament to demand early parliamentary polls, but are ruling out a new 'revolution.'

A court in Tbilisi released Georgian ex-defense minister Irakly Okruashvili on bail set at 10 million lari (over $6 million), the deputy prosecutor general told the press on Monday.

Representatives of Georgia's united opposition gathered Wednesday in the Chess Palace in downtown Tbilisi to discuss the possible abolishment of the presidency in the country.

Several thousands of protesters gathered today in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to support former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, who was arrested Thursday (September 27) on corruption-related charges.

An opposition party leader alleged that the fatal shooting of another opposition figure had ben ordered by the government, but the top government figures rejected the claim. Guram Sharadze, head of a small nationalist movement, was shot dead in central Tbilisi on Sunday night.