President Saakashvili resigned on November 25 to launch his pre-election campaign for early presidential polls.

“The President’s resignation is a formal and necessary procedure for appointment of the early presidential elections and for Mikheil Saakashvili to run for these elections,” Ivane Noniashvili, the president’s spokesman, said November 25.

Also on November 25 the Parliament approved with 148 to 1 vote a proposal to hold early presidential elections on January 5.
 
Nino Burjanadze, the Parliamentary Chairperson, has become an acting president for next forty days. She has become the acting president for the send time in four years. Burjanadze assumed presidential duties after the 2003 Rose Revolution after Eduard Shevardnadze’s resignation.

Vice-Speaker, Mikheil Machavariani, has assumed the parliamentary speaker’s duties.