Azernews.Az

TBILISI – Opposition leaders in Georgia on Tuesday cancelled plans to hold an Arab-style Day of Rage as protests against Western-backed President Mikhail Saakashvili went into a fourth day, AFP reported.

Accusing Saakashvili of authoritarianism and failing to tackle widespread poverty, a few hundred people rallied in the capital Tbilisi calling on the president to resign. But amid falling turnout at the rally and bitter divisions within the opposition, a rival party which had threatened to oust Saakashvili with a "Day of Rage" scheduled for Wednesday announced that the action would not go ahead.

"We have taken the very difficult decision to cancel our action planned for May 25," opposition Georgian Party leader Sozar Subari told local television. He said that fugitive former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, who had vowed to make a dramatic return from exile in France to join the protests despite facing 11 years in jail for corruption, had also cancelled his plan to come back.

Former Saakashvili ally and National Assembly opposition alliance leader Nino Burjanadze has promised a "revolution" but despite poor social conditions and the country's disastrous defeat in a war with arch-foe Russia in 2008, the protests have failed to attract mass support.

Around 200 people again camped out overnight into Tuesday, many armed with sticks after violence flared briefly on Sunday when police used rubber bullets and tear gas against demonstrators who attacked cars. Protesters have also maintained a small round-the-clock protest outside the public television studios in Tbilisi since Saturday.

They have also blocked a main road and set up around 10 tents behind a makeshift stage decorated with placards carrying slogans in English like "We are fighting for democracy" and "Misha (Saakashvili) must go." "Saakashvili says this is a democratic state but it is simply a dictatorship," one protester, Paata Gagua, said. "We will stay here as long as it takes to get rid of this government," said another, Alexandre Mikeladze.

Georgia's deputy prime minister accused Burjanadze - who has cultivated links with Saakashvili's enemies in Moscow - of trying to provoke unrest because she was unable to win power through elections. "Everyone sees and knows that Burjanadze has no support - even the majority of the opposition doesn't support her," deputy prime minister Giorgi Baramidze said. "She wants to cause turmoil and harm the country," he said.

The authorities, who sent in riot police to crush protests in 2007, say they will allow the demonstrations to continue as long as they remain peaceful.