Savior of Georgia. Russian marionette. A philanthropist. Oligarch. These are just some of the names for Bidzina Ivanishvili. This billionaire, the richest person in Georgia and the founder of the ruling party, rarely appears in public, and lately almost exclusively behind bulletproof glass. Still, his presence is significant in this small European country that sits between Russia and the West, and is facing elections that could shape its destiny.
Ivanishvili can look out over downtown Tbilisi from his massive steel-and-glass mansion with a helipad that rises some 60 meters above the capital. He indulges his exotic passions, such as herding sharks and zebras and collecting rare trees.
The 80-year-old Ivanishvili is considered by many friends and enemies to be the most powerful person in Georgia, or a "gray eminence", although he has not held public office for more than a decade. He portrayed today's election as an existential struggle to prevent the "global war party" in the West from plunging Georgia into a deadly conflict with its former master Russia, as he claims was done to Ukraine.
"Georgia and Ukraine are not allowed to join NATO and are left in the lurch," he said in a speech at a pro-government rally in Tbilisi on April 29. "All such decisions are made by the Global War Party, which has a decisive influence on NATO and the European Union and which sees Georgia and Ukraine only as cannon fodder."
While the majority of Georgia's 3,7 million people seek to move closer to the West by joining the EU and NATO, and largely distrust Russia, polls show Ivanshvili's message resonates with many who want to avoid Ukraine's fate at all costs.
Memories of the 2008 war with Russia over the Moscow-backed breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are fresh; the war lasted for five days and ended with the defeat of Georgia.
The home of Oleg Machavarijani is only six miles from South Ossetia. The 75-year-old retired civil servant fears that history will repeat itself if the pro-Western and anti-Russian opposition comes to power. "I think the first thing that will happen is that they will drag us into a war."
Polls show that Ivanišvili's "Georgian Dream" party could win the most votes in today's elections, although it is expected to gain less support at the national level than in 2020.
Ivanishvili, who was strongly pro-Western during his party's first decade in power, was not available for an interview for this article, while Georgian Dream maintains that it remains committed to integration with the West and a pragmatic policy towards neighboring Russia.
Interviews conducted by Reuters with several former close associates of the billionaire, as well as with voters on both sides of the spectrum and experts on Georgia, provide insight into the influence the mysterious magnate has in the South Caucasus country.
"Huge consolidation of power"
Allies at the highest levels of government speak of him almost as if he were the messiah. "When the people lost all hope, a man appeared who gave them back that hope," former prime minister Irakli Garibashvili said of Ivanishvili's first election victory in 2012, after which he served as prime minister for a year.
Garibashvili was one of a number of officials who praised Ivanishvili, the party's honorary chairman, in speeches at a rally in September, when - unlike the tycoon - they were not protected by bulletproof glass. Current Prime Minister Irakli Kobahidze said Ivanishvili sacrificed everything, including his health, to free Georgia from political enemies.
Ivanishvili spent much of the 1990s in Russia, founding banking, metallurgical and telecommunications companies, making his fortune in the chaotic period following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
His political opponents describe him as a power-hungry oligarch with a dangerous grip on former Soviet Georgia. Many call his party the "Russian Dream". Some label it as property of the Kremlin, although they have not supported this with evidence.
"He turned Georgia into a private company, which is 2014 percent owned by him," said Gia Kukashvili, a former senior political adviser to Ivanishvili, who helped found Georgian Dream before their relationship fell apart in XNUMX when Kukashvili accused Ivanishvili of keeping power from the shadows.
Giorgi Gakaria, who served as prime minister from the "Georgian Dream" party from 2019 to 2021 and resigned after accusing Ivanishvili of meddling in government affairs, echoed this criticism.
"The consolidation of power is huge," said Gakaria, who now heads the "For Georgia" party, one of the four main blocs of the disunited opposition participating in the Oct. 26 election.
"There is no longer any independent institution in this country," said Gakaria, who noted that the heads of the Georgian Central Bank, the Election Commission, the State Audit Office and the Judiciary all ultimately report to the magnate.
"All these people are directly connected to Ivanišvili. They are loyal to him."
The Georgian Ministry of Justice and the Central Bank did not respond to requests for comment. The Electoral Commission said that the suggestions about the influence of the ruling party are "groundless and harmful to the integrity of the election process", while the audit office said that the aim of Gakkaria's statements was to "damage" her reputation.
A complete change of rhetoric
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ivanishvili has completely reversed Georgia's long-standing alignment with the West, which he himself championed when he was prime minister in 2012-2013. year.
This year, the Georgian Dream government pushed through laws on "foreign agents," requiring organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as such, and launched a crackdown on the rights of the LGBT community, decisions praised by Moscow. while critics labeled it as anti-democratic and inspired by Russia.
The moves, along with Tbilisi's heightened anti-Western rhetoric, led the United States and the EU to freeze some aid to Georgia, and the bloc froze the country's application for membership.
Giorgi Margvelashvili, the former president of Georgia from 2013 to 2018 and a close associate of Ivanishvili when he was in opposition and during his early years in power, said the billionaire appeared genuinely pro-Western when he was active in politics.
He described him as a calm strategist who tried to balance a policy directed towards the EU and NATO with the imperative to avoid provoking the big northern neighbor.
Margvelashvili did note, however, Ivanishvili's new hostile rhetoric toward the West since the war in Ukraine began, a turn that seemed deeply unusual to him.
"We can only speculate about what made Bidzina Ivanishvili to such political instability," said Margvelashvili. "Suddenly changing the rhetoric by 180 degrees is not his style".
At the summit in Budapest in 2008, NATO agreed that Georgia would become a member at a certain time. That was a few months before the war with Russia, and little progress has been made since then.
Many Georgians fear the fate of Ukraine, where pro-Western protests on the Maidan in 2013-2014. ousted the pro-Russian government before Moscow annexed Crimea and began supplying arms to separatists in the east of the country.
Russian officials have repeatedly stated that they do not interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states and have accused the West of meddling in Georgian politics. The head of Russia's foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, said this month that he was confident Georgians would make the "right" choice and vote for "healthy, patriotic forces."
A former adviser to Kukashvili said Ivanishvili told him he left Russia after Putin's rise to power in 2000, believing the president would crack down on politically ambitious businessmen. Kukashvili said Ivanishvili's U-turn in foreign policy since the start of the conflict in Ukraine was an attempt to protect himself from Putin's wrath and save Georgia.
Ivanišvili himself suffered a major blow in the West in 2020, when a renegade banker from Kredit Suvis appropriated about one billion dollars of his money. Although much of the money was returned, his allies cited this case as proof that he was under de facto US sanctions.
The US has repeatedly stated that Ivanishvili was not sanctioned.
Ordinary people to lead Georgia
Natali Sabanadze, Georgia's former ambassador to the EU, told Reuters that the "Georgian Dream" also drew strength from the unpopularity of the opposition, which is struggling to shake off ties to the controversial figure of former Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, who ruled until 2012 and he is now serving a six-year prison sentence for abuse of power.
Despite deteriorating relations with the West, the ruling party can still rely on the status quo factor, especially among rural and public sector workers, said Sabanadze, a senior researcher at Chatham House in London.
Indeed, in the poor, rural western part of Georgia where Ivanishvili grew up, many locals consider him a philanthropist. Levan Ivanashvili, a high-ranking official in the city of Sačkere, highlighted the projects financed by his favorite son: three schools, a football stadium, a swimming pool, a hospital and a hotel, as well as the restoration of the historic castle.
Other voters have had enough of everything.
"Mr. Ivanishvili did positive things for Georgia in the past, but he stumbled, and Georgia stumbles under him," said Nikoloz Shurgaja at an opposition rally in Tbilisi. "Let a new generation of politicians, ordinary people, lead Georgia to a better future."
Translation: NB
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