Yesterday’s The Messenger (an english-language Georgian daily) covers the formation of a new political party out of smaller opposition groups, primarily the Conservatives and the Republicans. This new party shares in the heritage of the Rose Revolution, although it now finds enough room for disagreement with the ruling National Movement:

Several leading members of both the Conservative and Republican parties originally were members of the pro-government party but broke away over the last 20 months, disenchanted by the policies of the government.

“I can say for sure that we are a revolutionary opposition, in that we supported the Rose Revolution. Despite the fact that we do not support the current government, we are still devoted to the ideals of the revolution and believe that demands put forth during the revolution were right,” said Berdzenishvili.

Not long ago, similar transformations occurred in Ukraine, where former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and parliamentarians loyal to her feuded with President Yushchenko, resulting in her departure and his selection of a new prime minister. If you follow the link, you’ll see that a lot of people were — and no doubt still are — uncertain whether this bodes ill for the legacy of the Orange Revolution, and no doubt many people will feel similarly about the present developments and the Rose Revolution.

However, there are at least two reasons to be skeptical of this pessimism. First, it’s still very early in the ballgame, far too early to determine anything conclusively about what will transpire from these democratic revolutions. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the developments suggest something positive: that following the unity that arose during the revolutions and that was necessary to carry them off, the victorious democratic representatives are now distilling themselves into divisions that more closely reflect their actual beliefs within the new political environment, rather than the coarse agglomeration that was necessary for survival in the old.

While the circumstances were different and the comparison is inexact, this is reminiscent of newly independent Israel and the formation of her major political parties — even the name Likud, which means “Union Äof smaller partiesÅ”, a party that (in the form of its forebears) worked alongside its liberal opposites in the urgent times of pre-independence, then in a more relaxed atmosphere expressed its own views and, in the long run, became a major force in Israeli politics.

Again, it’s still far too early to say with any certainty what this fissure (or what any of the others) means, but it’s worth keeping an eye on, and could prove very interesting down the road.