Georgia\'s main opposition leader vowed on Sunday he would press protests, strikes and a campaign of \"total civil disobedience\" to demand President Eduard Shevardnadze quit or acknowledge he fixed an election. Mikhail Saakashvili told Reuters he would give Shevardnadze a little more time to come up with a compromise but warned the veteran leader he could be stirring up passions by refusing to acknowledge his people\'s demands. \"We are talking about peaceful protests, and rallies and constitutional means of expression...while Shevardnadze\'s response has all the time been about civil war,\" Saakashvili said. \"His wording has been menacing...and this kind of stand-off could lead to violence.\" Shevardnadze, in his first comments since Friday when up to 20,000 Georgians took part in the country\'s largest protest in a decade, said he wanted more talks with the \"radical opposition\" before time ran out. But he also warned the opposition against appealing for state sector strikes. \"These actions are punishable by law…(but if) they refuse to renounce their plans, then we have to enforce the law,\" he was quoted as saying by Russia\'s Itar-Tass news agency. The more than weeklong protests were triggered by a disputed parliamentary election on November 2 that the opposition said the authorities stole. The so far peaceful protests have developed into a wider call for Shevardnadze\'s ouster over alleged corruption, poverty, misrule and the loss of territory. The opposition, which stalled mass meetings outside parliament over the weekend, called for a change of tack to \"total civil disobedience.\" Saakashvili, who has led the protests, said he was united with Georgia\'s other opposition bloc to push demands that either Shevardnadze recognizes their election victory or leaves. But he admitted most people had set their sights beyond the poll and would not be happy with anything other than a change of power. \"The population knows that he is the cause of problem. He not only cannot solve the problem but he is the problem himself for many Georgians,\" he said. (Reuters)