Written by Felix Wright
TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia’s savior. Russian agent. philanthropist. oligarchy. Bidzina Ivanishvili has been called all of these names and more.
The billionaire, Georgia’s richest man and founder of the ruling party, rarely appears in public and these days is mostly seen behind bulletproof glass. But his presence looms large for Russia, the West and the small European country embroiled in an election that could decide its fate.
Ivanishvili overlooks downtown Tbilisi from a huge mansion perched on a steel and glass cliff with a helipad, some 60 meters above the capital. He indulges in exotic passions such as petting sharks and zebras and collecting rare trees.
The 68-year-old is considered by many, both friend and foe, to be Georgia’s most powerful or notorious figure, even though he hasn’t held public office in more than a decade. He cast Saturday’s election as an existential battle to prevent the West’s “world war party” from pushing Georgia, as well as Ukraine, into a disastrous conflict with former monarch Russia. .
“Georgia and Ukraine were not admitted to NATO and were left outside,” he said at a pro-government rally in Tbilisi on April 29, in a rare public appearance.
“All such decisions are taken by the World War Party, which has decisive influence in NATO and the European Union and sees Georgia and Ukraine only as cannon fodder.”
Opinion polls show that most of Georgia’s 3.7 million people are keen to move closer to the West by joining the EU or NATO, and many do not trust Russia, but Ivanishvili’s message is clear that Ukraine will remain at all costs. It resonates with many people who want to avoid that fate.
The 2008 war with Russia over the Russian-backed Breakway region of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is still fresh in the memory. The war lasted five days and ended in Georgia’s defeat.
Oleg Macyavariani’s home is just nine miles from South Ossetia. The 75-year-old former civil servant fears history will repeat itself if a staunchly pro-Western and anti-Russian opposition wins power.
“I think the first thing that’s going to happen is we’re going to get into a war.”
Opinion polls show Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream is on track to become the country’s most popular party in the election, but it is expected to lose ground nationally since 2020, when it won a narrow majority in parliament.
Mr. Ivanishvili, who was strongly pro-Western during his party’s first decade in power, was not available for an interview for this article, but he said the Georgian Dream was focused on integration with the West and pragmatic policies toward neighboring Russia. He said he is continuing to work on it.
Reuters interviews with several of the billionaire’s former aides, voters on both sides of the aisle and Georgia experts provide insight into the influence the mysterious tycoon wielded in the South Caucasus country.
“The consolidation of power is huge.”
His allies in the highest halls of power speak of him in almost messianic terms.
Two-time former prime minister Irakli Garibashvili said, “When the people had lost hope forever, a man appeared who could restore hope.” He talked about serving as prime minister.
Mr. Garibashvili was one of a series of officials who praised Mr. Ivanishvili, the party’s honorary chairman, in a speech at a rally in September that, unlike the bigwigs, was not protected by bulletproof glass. Current Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said Ivanishvili sacrificed everything, including his health, to protect Georgia from political opponents.
Ivanishvili spent much of the 1990s in Russia, where he became wealthy in the turmoil that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, founding banks, metals and telecommunications companies.
His political opponents paint an image of a power-hungry oligarchy with dangerous control over the former Soviet state of Georgia. Many call his party “Russian Dream”. Some have labeled him as a key figure in the Kremlin without providing any evidence of this.
“He turned Georgia into a private company, of which he is 100% owner,” said Ivanishvili’s former top political adviser Gia Kukashvili. He helped launch Georgian Dream until their relationship broke down in 2014 when Ivanishvili accused him of holding onto power. From behind the scenes.
Giorgi Gakharia, who served as Prime Minister of Georgia Dream from 2019 to 2021 and resigned after accusing Ivanishvili of meddling in government affairs, echoed this criticism.
“The consolidation of power is huge,” said Gakharia, who heads the For Georgia party, one of the four main blocs in Georgia’s splinter opposition party running in the Oct. 26 election.
“There is no longer a single independent institution in this country,” Gakharia said, adding that the heads of Georgia’s central bank, election commission, state auditor’s office and judiciary all hold powerful people ultimately accountable. He was named as the person responsible.
“All these people are directly connected to Ivanishvili. They are loyal to him.”
Georgia’s Ministry of Justice, Audit Office and Central Bank did not respond to requests for comment. The Election Commission said the suggestion that the election was influenced by the ruling party is “baseless and undermines the integrity of the election process.”
A ‘180 degree turn’ on Western rhetoric
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ivanishvili has largely reversed Georgia’s long-standing alliance with the West, which he championed as prime minister in 2012-2013.
This year, the Georgian Dream government cracked down on LGBT rights by pushing through a bill on “foreign agents” that would require organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register, a decision that Moscow has criticized. It was praised, but critics criticized it. Anti-democratic and Russian-influenced.
This move, coupled with increased anti-Western rhetoric from Tbilisi, led to the US and EU suspending some aid to Georgia and the EU freezing Georgia’s membership application.
Giorgi Margvelashvili, who served as President of Georgia from 2013 to 2018 and was a close colleague of Ivanishvili during his days in opposition and in the early years of his government, said that when the billionaire was on the front lines of politics, he was a close colleague of Mr. appeared to be sincerely pro-Western, he said.
He described him as a level-headed, strategic thinker who tried to balance pro-EU and NATO policies with the imperative to avoid provoking Georgia’s vast northern neighbor.
Margvelashvili said that since the Ukraine war, there has nevertheless been a new animosity in Ivanishvili’s anti-Western rhetoric, a change that seemed very out of character to him. .
“We can only guess what brought Bidzina Ivanishvili into this kind of political turmoil,” Margvelashvili said. “It’s not his style to suddenly change his rhetoric 180 degrees.”
Georgia’s eventual membership in NATO was agreed at the 2008 Budapest summit. That was months before the war with Russia began, and little progress has been made since then.
Many Georgians are alarmed by Ukraine’s ordeal. In Ukraine, pro-Western Maidan protests in 2013-2014 toppled the pro-Russian government before Russia annexed Crimea and began supplying weapons to separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Russian officials have repeatedly said they do not interfere in sovereign states and have accused Western countries of interfering in Georgian politics. Russia’s foreign spy chief Sergei Naryshkin said this month that he was confident Georgians would make the “right” choice and vote for “sound and patriotic forces.”
A former aide, Khukashvili, said that Ivanishvili left Russia after Putin took power in 2000, believing that the president would crack down on politically ambitious businessmen. Kukashvili said Ivanishvili’s foreign policy shift since the Ukraine conflict was an attempt to spare himself and Georgia from Putin’s wrath.
Ivanishvili himself suffered a major blow in the West in 2020 when rogue bankers at Credit Suisse embezzled about $1 billion in cash. Much of the money was recovered, but his allies point to the incident as evidence that he is under “de facto” U.S. sanctions. The United States has repeatedly said Ivanishvili is not under sanctions.
Let “ordinary people” lead Georgia
Nathalie Savanadze, Georgia’s former ambassador to the EU, told Reuters that Georgian Dream also gained strength from the opposition’s unpopularity. The opposition has struggled to shake off its rivalry with former Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, who ruled until 2012. He is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for abuse of power.
Savanadze, a senior fellow at Chatham House think tank in London, said that despite deteriorating relations with the West, the ruling party still relied on “status quo factors”, particularly among local and public sector workers. He said he could.
Indeed, in the impoverished countryside of western Georgia where Ivanishvili grew up, he is respected by many locals as a philanthropist. District Mayor Levan Ivanashvili of Zakkele town pointed out the projects financed by his favorite son: three schools, a football stadium, a swimming pool, a hospital, a hotel and the restoration of a historic castle.
Other voters have had enough.
“Mr. Ivanishvili has done positive things for Georgia in the past, but he has declined and Georgia under him is in decline,” Nikoloz Shulgaia said at an opposition rally in Tbilisi. said. “Let a new generation of politicians and ordinary people lead Georgia to a better future.”
(Reporting by Felix Light; Additional reporting by Lucy Papachristou in London and Simon Lewis in Washington; Editing by Pravin Char)