TBILISI, Nov 1: Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze dismissed his government on Thursday in a dramatic move he said was needed to defend free speech after a bungled police raid on a top independent television station.

“I took this decision in order to show people that freedom of expression really exists in the country,” the 73-year-old Georgian leader said in a nationally-televised address following the announcement.

“I took this decision in the name of Georgia, in the name of peace and tranquillity in the country.”

Dismissal of the government was the culmination of a crisis that burst into open political warfare here after police attempted to raid the Rustavi 2 television network that has criticised the government.

The police claimed to have a warrant to examine the firm’s financial records but failed to produce it, witnesses to the Tuesday raid said.

Investigators were ejected from the premises by the station manager, and the speaker of the Georgian parliament, Zurab Zhvania, characterized the raid as an “open attack on freedom of expression” in the impoverished Caucasus state.

The television network has developed a reputation for hard-hitting and substantiated journalism, and has for several years broadcast reports on mismanagement and corruption by senior government figures.

Many observers saw in the Rustavi 2 police raid an echo of similar police moves in Moscow against influential private media outlets, notably the Media-MOST Group owned by the now-exiled businessman, Vladimir Gusinsky.

Under mounting pressure from political opponents and thousands of young protesters in the streets, Shevardnadze on Wednesday accepted the resignation of his state security minister, Vakhtang Kutateladze, and admitted the raid appeared “poorly thought-out.”

That did not satisfy his political opponents however and hours later the Georgian leader threatened to resign if opponents in the parliament forced his interior minister and public prosecutor to quit.

But in his television address Thursday, Shevardnadze made clear he had no plans to leave the political scene any time soon.

“I am aware of my responsibility to the country,” Shevardnadze said.

“I therefore have no intention of throwing in the towel and going home. I am prepared to continue my work in the post of president of the country.”

Under Georgia’s constitution, the president is not obliged to call new elections. But in an interview with a Russian radio station, Zhvania called on him to do just that.

“Very serious constitutional reform needs to be considered now,” Zhvania told Echo Moscow radio.

He said there were now “new factors” such as the thousands of young students who demonstrated their feelings this week in the streets of the Georgian capital, which now made early legislative elections necessary.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow was “watching developments closely.” —AFP