PRESENT TENSE:THIS WEEK, at last, the baton was passed on. The man whose famed charisma made him an electoral phenomenon, who oversaw a transformation in his country's fortunes and who inspired passionate loyalty and withering criticism in equal measure, came to the end of his remarkable time in power, writes Davin O'Dwyer.
He was divisive, certainly, but even his detractors had to acknowledge that his political shrewdness and cunning made him a formidable leader.
The time had come for him to step down, but at least he could step down on his own terms, handing over the reins to his anointed successor, a man he had chosen and groomed for power. For the new leader, whose principal quality appears to be blind loyalty to his predecessor, the most immediate challenge now lies in escaping from his mentor's long shadow. That, however, is likely to be a difficult proposition, because they do things differently in the Kremlin.
So while Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin embark on a pioneering power "sharing" experiment in Russia, we witnessed our own, rather more conventional, transfer of power this week. While Bertie Ahern's shadow won't extend to continuing de facto control over the country, it might just be long enough to unsettle Brian Cowen's honeymoon period, because, worryingly for Cowen, a discernible pattern has emerged when it comes to presumptive leaders finally attaining power, and the pattern ain't pretty.
The recent history of the political heir apparent is littered with unfulfilled potential and baffling incompetence. The most immediate case study for successions gone awry is, of course, the sorrowful plight of Gordon Brown in the UK. Having impatiently endured his decade-long role as the natural successor to Tony Blair, he finally made the step up from chancellor to prime minister last summer. But now that he has achieved his dream, he flounders. His hangdog expression, once the mark of his commanding seriousness, has metamorphosed into the physical symbol of his mounting failure. His principal characteristic in power has been indecisiveness, whether over a snap election or the 10p tax or nationalising Northern Rock. As the Labour peer, Lord Desai, put it last month: "Gordon Brown was put on earth to remind people how good Tony Blair was."
There is an uncanny precedent to Brown's plight, also involving a fractious rivalry between a charismatic party leader and his finance minister. Jean Chrétien was the bumbling prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003, and, while it was hard to take him totally seriously, with his frequent malapropisms and impenetrable Québécois accent, he also proved himself an electoral master, winning three elections on the trot. His finance minister was shipping magnate Paul Martin, who was every bit as smooth as Chrétien was cartoonish. (Famously, after violently grabbing a demonstrator by the neck, Chrétien offered this gem of an excuse: "Something happened to somebody who should not have been there.")
Martin finally became prime minister in late 2003 (Bono even made an appearance at the Liberal Party convention at which Martin assumed power - beat that, Biffo), but once in the top job, Martin quickly earned the sobriquet "Mr Dither". He struggled through scandal and electoral underachievement before losing a general election to the Conservatives in early 2006. All those years of strong fiscal leadership, then an anticlimactic and indecisive spell in power before an ignominious defeat. Is that the smell of déjà vu?
The phenomenon of the difficult transition of power isn't restricted to politics, of course - the world of business has seen many a high-flying corporation brought to its knees by a mishandled accession. There is currently no better example than Microsoft, where Steve Ballmer has been chief executive since 2000, while Bill Gates has increasingly devoted himself to philanthropy. The recent attempted takeover of Yahoo, comically deluded in concept, farcically inept in execution, was a sign of a company in trouble, while the release of the long-delayed Vista has been nothing short of a disaster. Ballmer's main attribute appeared to be fierce loyalty to his college dorm-mate Gates, but running one of the world's biggest companies seems to require a rather more diverse skill set.
Sport, also, has some cautionary tales for the new Taoiseach. Matt Busby made life impossible for his replacement, promoted reserve team coach Wilf McGuinness, simply by hanging around Old Trafford, being a legend. Within a year, McGuinness was gone, and Busby had to return for a short-lived second spell. (God help Carlos Queiroz if he is offered, and accepts, the role of replacing Alex Ferguson, the very epitome of a poisoned chalice.)
Cowen can, of course, look to the few examples where groomed successors enjoy long, successful careers in charge. The Communist Party of China seems to manage the trick fairly well, and Raul Castro looks like he might be a more, shall we say, enlightened leader of Cuba than his brother. And who knows, perhaps in time the Medvedev-Putin axis will prove to be a model for future accessions - Bertie for president, anyone?
Shane Hegarty is on leave