Mikheil Saakasvili, generally regarded as politically secure after his party's triumph in the 30th May elections suffered an unexpected reverse today when polling for the US-led National Democratic Institute (NDI) showed just 26% - a fraction over one-in four - of Georgian voters wanted to see him stay on in power as Prime Minister at the end of his presidential term.

Saakashvili's court have been pressing hard for constitutional amendments that would significantly downgrade the role of president and instead place most power in the hands of the PM: today the holder of that post is little more than the president's cipher.

The poll showed only 14% supported the idea of a strong prime minister, with 48% supporting a presidential system.

Saakashvili is term-limited and so is unlikely to remain as president after 2013. A "liberal" faction inside the ruling party is said to oppose the shift to a strong prime minister because they want Saakashvili and is interior minister, Vano Merabishvili and Merabishvili's key ally, education minister Dmitry Shashkin, out of the way.

A presidential system may also suit opposition leader Irakli Alasania who may gamble he has the personal qualities and appeal to win in a national run-off. In contrast the parliamentary Christian Democrats, who vie with Alasania's Free Democrats for the position of leading opposition party, may well prefer a strong parliamentary system.

Clearly if a constitutional amendment was put to a popular vote Saakashvili's faction could be in trouble. But it is parliament that has the power to change the constitution.

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.

A year ago the opposition parties of Georgia were, at least in public, united in their desire to impress on the new United States government the need to take a firmer line on human rights abuses in Georgia. Today that unity seems shattered, perhaps beyond repair.

Last July US Vice President Joe Biden made it clear, in an address to the Georgian parliament, that he expected Mikheil Saakasvili's government to start cleaning up its act, but he also clearly indicated that is expectation was that the opposition would move off the streets and into contesting elections.

The progress on either front has been mixed at the very best.

Abuses of procedure at last month's local elections were noticeably less egregious than in the past. In Tbilisi at least allegations of ballot stuffing and false registration were muted (not so in the countryside, of course). But no election where the ruling party can outspend its rivals nine-to-one, controls the national television and blatantly uses state resources even to host its campaign websites can possibly be described as "fair".

Nor - as recent events have shown - can Georgia be described as having taken any serious steps towards wider political freedom in the last year. The ongoing dalliance with Iran - whether for reasons of realpolitik or otherwise - is a sign of a government that has seriously lost the plot on the journey west.

But the divisions in the opposition are fundamental. Some opposition parties took a tactical decision to compete in the polls, others an equally tactical decision to abstain or play around with the idea of a boycott.

But Irakli Alasania (pictured), who came second in Tbilisi's mayoral poll and so has a good claim, in the west at least, to be seen as the "leader" of the opposition obviously took a strategic decision to take part.

Hence while the result was obviously a disappointment it was also functional for him because it established an electoral base for his party in the capital and in a number of other areas. He emerged with some policy definition and not just a claim for votes based on the fact he was not Misha or Misha's proxy.

In short, he took steps towards building a party machine and profile that would be familiar in a mature democracy.

But, say the others in the opposition, he is wasting his time. And worst than that, by encouraging illusions in the electoral process under Saakasvili, he is diverting and dividing forces when the need to rebuild a broad coalition against the president and is regime is once more urgent.

In this environment Alasania's continued links to the west - he has been in Washington DC this week - are seen as rewards for services rendered to the US project of keeping Misha on the straight and narrow, rather than the US maintaining dialogue with a democratic alternative in an allied country.

And the US's obvious desire to avoid instability (including government-manufactured instability) in Georgia as fixes its eyes on Iran and what it sees as the necessity for some degree of Russian assent to a firm hand against the Islamic Republic is seen as turning a moral blind eye to human right abuses: the same charge that is levelled at the US over the "Russian reset".

Opposition unity has long been seen as essential if Saakashvili is to be replaced. But the demands of electoral politics - the need to actually win over at least some of the majority who currently support the UNM may mean that Alasania - badly bruised from his efforts in the spring to widen his support amongst the opposition parties - will decide that it is less important than pitching is standard on the political centre ground.

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.

Three of the leading figures of the Georgian opposition - former speaker and acting president Nino Burjanadze, former defence minister Irakli Okruashvili and former presidential candidate Levan Gachechiladze - are to form a new political "association" to demand early presidential and parliamentary polls.

It is not clear at present if this will be in the form of a new political party or whether - as was suggested earlier today - the "new recruits" of Okruashvili and Gachechiladze will join Burjandadze's Democratic Movement - United Georgia.

None of the three took part in the recent mayoral elections, though Gachechiladze was actively involved in seeking a common platform amongst all the opposition parties: a move which failed.

Today Nino Burjanadze rounded on Irakli Alasania who had earlier said that "nihilism" in some opposition circles over the poll had contributed to the scale of the ruling party's victory.