Week 6-12 FEB.: Parallels never meet

In Euclidean geometry, parallels never meet.
So seem to do Georgia and Russia.
On the other hand, like for parallels, they share something.

Right now the two countries share the common pattern of billioners contending the primate to the present leadership.
Prokhorov, in Russia, is a Presidential candidate. Ivanishvili in Georgia is much less: actually, he's not even a Georgian citizen. Not any longer. But he gained visibility, he has money and somehow he is in the political arena.

For each of them the previous presidents voiced their support: in Russia Michail Gorbachev said “I think it’s worth voting for him [Prokhorov].”; in Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze in January declared during an interview that he was sure that Ivanishvili would reach the power.
In both cases, the aspirants may not gain so much from this statements: both previous presidents are probably more listened abroad than domestically, and both of them are not really loved. For some citizens, they represent - much more than relevant opinion makers - Soviet geriatrics.

In both Georgia and Russia triumphalism seems to be the chosen political language of communication by the ruling class.
In Georgia Saakashvili came back from United States claiming to have achieved more that it was even conceivable, in the field of cooperation for defence capabilities.
Putin pledged, in case of his election, to cut inflation, to turn Russia in one of the world's economic centres, to drastically change the housing situation, to invest in religious buildings' reconstrucion and to refrain from interference in the affaires of religious association, and, not last, to return to "winter time" and to reverse the demographic crisis, making Russian population reach 154 million.

Both are not really credible: the two of them seem to be promising much more than they can get.
And probably their stubborn attachment to power is a destabilizing element in their systems.
Some Putin's supporters turned into "bench sitters" after the hand-over with Medvedev. They may not join the protests, but they are not really happy about how all the issue was managed. Some other just think he had his chance to reform the country, and that he did what he did, but now he's done with Russia.
And it's clear, as well, that a reply of the Medvedev-Putin tandem, after the amendment that strengthens the role of the Prime Minister in Georgia, wouldn't be welcome. At least not by the international community.

Let's see if the parallels will diverge exactly on this point.