TBILISI, Feb 3: The prime minister of Georgia was found dead on Thursday in a bizarre gas poisoning that robs the inexperienced president, Mikhail Saakashvili, of a steadying hand to help run his turbulent country.

Mr Saakashvili said he was taking over the functions of Zurab Zhvania, one of the few heavyweights in his reformist leadership who will be hard to replace. It was not clear if this was a temporary move or not.

Zhvania's bodyguards found the 41-year-old slumped in an armchair near a gas heater at a friend's apartment, said Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili. "This is a tragic accident ... It was a gas poisoning," he said.

Zhvania was the senior figure in a trio of leaders who spearheaded a "Rose Revolution" of street protests that toppled veteran leader Eduard Shevardnadze in November 2003 and then installed the West-leaning Saakashvili in power.

The president's decision to name himself as a caretaker prime minister underscored the scarcity of suitable candidates to succeed Zhvania in the country of 5 million people.

"As president I am taking over leadership of executive power. I am ordering the government to return to work," he told a crowd outside Tbilisi's Holy Trinity cathedral where Zhvania's funeral is to be held.

"(Zhvania's death) is a huge blow for our country and personally for me as a president and as a person," a red-eyed Saakashvili earlier told ministers at an emergency meeting, many of them dressed in black, his own voice breaking with emotion. -Reuters