analysis
The ruling party in Georgia is striving for another term in office with all its might and is putting the country’s future at risk. Behind it all is an oligarch who sees enemies everywhere.
For a long time there were only rumors surrounding him. He was never seen in public. He became incredibly rich as a businessman in Russia in the 1990s. He donated generously to the construction of the Sameba Church in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, as well as to equip the Georgian army. In his home region of Imereti, he finances roofs for people.
The rumors intensified in 2011. Then Bidzina Ivanishvili came into the spotlight. He founded the Georgian Dream party. His goal: to drive incumbent President Mikhail Saakashvili, who was becoming increasingly authoritarian, from power with his UNM party in the 2012 parliamentary elections.
“Saakashvili’s people came, ran businesses and robbed the country. I, on the other hand, have spent two billion on the country and will continue to do so. I am a great democrat. I am strict, principled, straightforward and clear,” he said in an interview at the time tagesschau.de. In fact, many houses in Imereti had new roofs glowing in light blue and green.
His ideas about politics reflected a technocratic understanding of democracy – with him as an engineer of the distribution of power.
loyalty instead professionalism
For the election campaign, Ivanishvili, following the example of his opponent, hired foreign PR firms and political consultants. One of them was the former US ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum, who also traveled to the last major election campaign event with tens of thousands of participants and later complained about unpaid bills.
The election victory was overwhelming. Ivanishvili became prime minister and formed a coalition with several parties. But he filled the most important positions with his people. The then Interior Minister and later Prime Minister Iraqi Garibashvili was a manager in Ivanishvili’s Cartu Group. The general director of the bank of the same name, Irakli Kvirikashvili, also held several posts in the cabinet. Ivanishvili’s lawyer Archil Kbilashvili became prosecutor general.
Eccentric hobbies
Ivanishvili himself quickly became tired of politics and retired in 2013. But he didn’t stop at doing business and indulging in his eccentric hobbies, including a private zoo and a private park where he had old and rare trees from all over the country transplanted.
Former ministers from other parties reported in an interview with tagesschau.dethat the cabinet continued to make no decision without Ivanishvili’s consent. Diplomats also repeatedly made pilgrimages to his glass palace above the capital to exchange ideas with him.
State as property
His party did correct some of the ultra-liberal excesses from the Saakashvili era. But for most people in Georgia, prosperity remained a promise. They nevertheless voted his party into government two more times, also due to a lack of alternatives. Saakashvili and several of his colleagues were sentenced to prison.
Ivanishvili now exercises power informally with his people in the formal system of separation of powers that still exists. Opposition politicians speak of Ivanishvili’s capture of the state. BI, as he is also called, sees Georgia as his possession.
Contacts with Russian companies
Would he give this property away – to its all-powerful neighbor Russia? Those who see Ivanishvili as an executor of the Kremlin point to the short-term prosecutor general Otar Partzhaladze, a Russian-Georgian businessman and, according to local media, Ivanishvili’s confidante. The US government placed him under sanctions because he is said to have cooperated with the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB to influence the mood in Georgia.
A 2022 report by Transparency International Georgia describes connections from Ivanishvili’s environment to Russian companies. Two audio recordings on YouTube are said to show that Ivanishvili spoke to Russian businessman Vladimir Yevtushenkov about possible business deals that would circumvent Western sanctions.
Enemies everywhere
A former prime minister from the ruling party, Giorgi Gacharia, does not believe that Putin wants to take power in Georgia. The Russian leadership doesn’t want to make that effort; it’s enough to be able to exert pressure, said Gacharia in an interview tagesschau.de.
But according to Gacharia’s description, Ivanishvili is susceptible to pressure. Because he is primarily concerned about his safety and sees enemies everywhere. Ivanishvili believes that only power can protect his security.
That would explain why his party wants to push through the law on “foreign influence” and other measures to restrict government opponents at all costs before the parliamentary election.
Ivanishvili seems convinced that the West is targeting him. Proof of this is that two billion dollars of his assets have already been effectively frozen. It is known that an employee of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse embezzled more than $100 million from a $1 billion investment. Ivanishvili took legal action against the bank. It took years for the bank to pay. But it was also because there were legal proceedings involving several financial institutions through which the investment had been placed with Credit Suisse.
Obscure “global war party”
On April 28, Ivanishvili spoke at a rally about a “global war party” that was targeting Georgia and financing its political opponents in the country. He himself would ensure that they received their “due punishment”. In doing so, he showed that he himself is behind the conspiracy rumors that his party loyalists usually spread. People close to him say Ivanishvili is serious about this.
By enforcing the law on “foreign influence”, his party is now actively jeopardizing Georgia’s further path to the EU, even though more than 80 percent of the population and thus a large part of its previous voters are in favor of joining the EU.
In this speech, Ivanishvili no longer presented himself as a benevolent leader of the country, as he had once announced. Rather, he seemed like a paranoid oligarch taking his country hostage.