Georgian prime minister resigns due to poor health

"According to doctors I need two months of intensive treatment.... Georgia does not have the luxury of a prime minister being absent for treatment for three months," said Mgaloblishvili, who had already been absent receiving treatment for kidney problems. 

"I today asked the president to consider a new candidate for the position of prime minister," he said in a live television address.

Georgia’s government has undergone repeated changes since an August war with Russia, with the country’s defense and foreign ministers also replaced.

A spokesman for President Mikheil Saakashvili, Vano Noniashvili, said he could not say when a new candidate for the premier’s post would be put forward or who the candidate might be.

Mgaloblishvili, Georgia’s former ambassador to Turkey, said he was recommending deputy premier and finance minister Nika Gilauri as his replacement.

Saakashvili has faced increasing pressure for his handling of the war, in which Russian troops poured into Georgia to repel a Georgian military attempt to retake the rebel region of South Ossetia.

Critics, including some former allies, have accused Saakashvili of provoking the war, which saw Russian forces occupy swathes of territory and bomb targets across the country.

On Thursday, leading opponents of Saakashvili joined forces to sign a demand for his resignation and the holding of early elections.

Under a European Union-brokered ceasefire agreement, Russian forces later withdrew to within South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, which Moscow recognized as independent states.