Giorgi Targamadze, leader of the Christian Democrats, is something of a Georgian enigma.

Formerly the chief spokesman for the Adjaran government when that body was under the grip of the regional strongman Aslan Abashidze, his job then was to provide some sort of fig leaf of respectability to an open corrupt and thuggish regime.
 

He got out of that one before the roof caved in and a fter a brief parliamentary career next came to public prominence as the main face Imedi TV when that station increasingly became the vehicle that exposed the brutality and lies behind the Saakashvili regime. He was the man who was on air as that station died live on air under the assault of Georgian special forces on 7 November 2007.
 

His behaviour in the weeks that followed left many embittered – essentially he has been accused of being all too willing to assent to the Saakashvili’s regime destruction of the station’s integrity after international pressure forced the government to let it go back on air: unable to destroy the station by force from without, Saakashvili’s cronies found themselves an ally on the inside say Targamadze’s enemies.
 

Some mutter that Targamadze’s Adjaran past makes him particularly vulnerable to a state security service more than happy to store up past misdemeanours for future use against potential enemies.
 

One thing is clear though – many of Imedi’s former journalists remain loyal to him, with former star interviewer Inga Grigolia being the most famous of those who followed him when he returned to politics through the founding of the Christian Democrats.
 

That party’s behaviour since 2007 has been an echo of Targamadze’s wider career: one minute attacking the regime for its complicity in shooting down innocent people, the next seeming to side with Saakashvili – and being duly rewarded with dollops of coverage on the state controlled media – in attacking opposition figures as agents of Russia (notably while forming a political alliance with parties formerly in Vladimir Putin’s orbit).
 

The Christian Democrats, though, have won consistent praise – in private – from western diplomats, who see Targamadze not as a skilled performer and political chameleon but as a reformed man serious about building a national party.
 

In Tbilisi (pictured) his party has struggled but outside the capital it has done better – coming second in the national vote in the 30 May election: partly a reflection of being willing to spread its resources more thinly and partly because Targamadze made no effort to win power anywhere but did try to win something everywhere: the very opposite of Irakli Alasania’s approach.
 

Today the Georgian press rumour (and it is just a rumour) that Alasania and Targamadze may be about to join forces. These sorts of stories often lead nowhere and can even have been planted by enemies anxious to stir up trouble.
 

But let us just examine the issues here in any case.
 

In one dimension this makes perfect sense: both leaders say Georgia needs change but that the change should come from the ballot box and not the street. Both have rejected the idea that the opposition should pose as the deal makers with the Kremlin, both have expressed concerns about civil and human rights under Saakashvili while expressing no desire to return to the status quo ante the Rose Revolution of 2003.
 

But there are also considerable draw-backs. It’s not just Targamadze’s Adjaran past that suggests he is the supreme opportunist, but his constant zig sagging in and out of Saakashvili’s orbit today. His party is also less than committed to Alasania’s pro-western vision: rarely talking of NATO and advocating a protectionist economic approach that would make integration with the EU an impossibility.
 

More seriously it would drive a yet bigger wedge between Alasania (pictured, right) and what were until just a few weeks ago his key allies in the Republicans, New Rights and Way of Georgia. They are unlikely to see Targamadze as anything but a stooge of Saakashvili.
 

But Alasania’s calculation may be that the doubling of the electoral base of the “reformist” wing that an alliance with the Christian Democrats will bring makes the costs of the deal worth paying.

Irakli Alasania, erstwhile leader of the four party Alliance for Georgia last night announced that the coalition was breaking up.

Speaking on Kavkasia TV he said the four parties would be likely to work together but would also be free to make their own decisions.

The Alliance came second in the Tbilisi local elections on 30 May and third in Georgia as a whole. Alasania established himself as a leading political figure in the country by polling almost 20% in the race for Tbilisi's mayoralty.

However it has been an open secret that Alasania has also been frustrated by having to refer all his decisions as leader and candidate to a wider group - many of whom were active in Georgian politics even before the Rose Revolution.

Women were 20% more likely to vote for Gigi Ugulava than men in 30 May's Tbilisi mayoral election - suggesting the opposition's frequent reliance on swagger and threats of resorting to "the street" or promising revolutionary upheaval decisively alienated female voters.

The Georgian Public Broadcaster has published some more details of their exit poll for the Tbilisi elections and it shows 63% of women backing Ugulava, compared to 53% of men. As the exit poll was broadly accurate the figures can be assumed to point to a real "gender gap" facing opposition politicians.

Women significantly outnumber men in Georgia, partly as a continuing, if now fading, legacy of the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945, which saw men in particular in the Soviet Union die in vast numbers resisting the Nazi invasion, but also because men are generally more likely to die younger: winning women's votes is essential for any realistic hope of breaking the ruling party's absolute grip on power through the ballot box.

Across global electorates women voters are often those most fearful of change and upheaval, possibly because so many of them put their families and children as their main concern. They are also generally less interested in "hard" economic facts and debate and more concerned with social issues and public services. Above all they react strongly to machismo and threatening rhetoric.

In Georgia this is all somewhat balanced by the fact that a significant number of men seem to believe that women are incapable of governing - a response to pollsters' questions that dropped towards zero in most western European countries in the 1970s and 1980s but still seems to run strongly south of the Caucasus.

Two opposition parties - the Alliance for Georgia and the Christian Democrats - seemed to make a conscious effort to promote women in their campaign: both topped their lists for the Tbilisi city assembly with a woman. But with the UNM armed with a massive budget and supported by the experienced political operatives of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner they were always struggling.

Other opposition parties - particularly the National Council seemed to make a virtue of their maleness and even their willingness to fight the authorities on the streets: plainly a self-defeating approach to winning votes.

Sozar Subari, the former human rights ombudsman for Georgia - a role which saw him become one of the most trusted people in Georgian public - has today launched a new movement decidated, he says, to the "Georgian idea" - defined as the nation's independence, its willingness to care for one another and its commitment to democracy and human rights.

Subari has recently quit as co-leader of the Alliance for Georgia, criticising that party coalition for not being more aggressive in its pursuit of Mikheil Saakashvili's government and for not calling for people to use the local elections on 30 May as a means to see the quick removal from office of that government.

Subari was joined at today's launch by Levan Gachechiladze, opposition candidate for president in 2008 and founder of the "Defend Georgia" campaign.

Mikheil Saakashvili's regime is engaged in a campaign of deception to cover-up active plans to install the president as a powerful prime minister once his current term in office ends, allege the Alliance for Georgia opposition coalition.

The Alliance say that English language versions of amendments to the constitution proposed by an official commission and sent to the Council of Europe's constitutional watchdog, the Venice Commission, propose a definitive date of coming into force, while the Georgian language versions do not.

The commission has recommended much of the current powers of the president be transferred to the prime minister, making it an ideal job for Saakashvili, who is limited to serving two terms as president, should he continue in politics after his current term of office expires in 2013.

Critically, the English language version of the amendments specifies they would come into force as soon as the results of the 2013 presidential election were finalised, a date which would allow Saakashvili to move seemlessly from one job to another.

Irakli Alasania (pictured), leader of the Alliance, has written to the chairman of the constitutional commission, Avtandil Demetrashvili, asking for an explanation of the discrepency.

A two-thirds majority, something the ruling United National Movement easily commands, in parliament is required to amend the constitution.