Georgia’s shark-owning billionaire tells voters: Do not danger conflict with Russia By Reuters

By Felix Gentle

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia’s saviour. Russia’s stooge. Philanthropist. Oligarch. Bidzina Ivanishvili has been referred to as all this stuff, and extra.

The billionaire, Georgia’s richest individual and the founding father of its ruling social gathering, is seldom seen in public and, of late, virtually completely behind bulletproof glass. But his presence looms giant over this small European nation caught been Russia and the West and an election that might form its future.

Ivanishvili can gaze down on downtown Tbilisi from an enormous steel-and-glass clifftop mansion that rears about 60 metres over the capital, full with helipad. He indulges unique passions like conserving sharks and zebras and gathering uncommon bushes.

The 68-year-old is considered by many buddies and foes alike as Georgia’s strongest determine, or eminence grise, despite the fact that he hasn’t held public workplace for over a decade. He has forged Saturday’s election as an existential battle to stop a “Global War Party” within the West pushing Georgia right into a ruinous battle with former overlord Russia, like he says it did with Ukraine.

“Georgia and Ukraine were not allowed to join NATO and were left outside,” he mentioned in a uncommon public look at a pro-government rally in Tbilisi on Apr. 29.

“All such decisions are made by the Global War Party, which has a decisive influence on NATO and the European Union and which only sees Georgia and Ukraine as cannon fodder.”

Whereas most of Georgia’s 3.7 million individuals are eager to maneuver nearer to the West by becoming a member of the EU and NATO, and largely do not belief Russia, opinion polls present, Ivanishvili’s message resounds with many who wish to keep away from Ukraine’s destiny in any respect prices.

Recollections are recent of a 2008 conflict with Russia over the Moscow-backed breakway areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which lasted 5 days and led to Georgia’s defeat.

Oleg Machavariani’s dwelling is just six miles from South Ossetia. The 75-year-old retired civil servant fears a rerun of historical past ought to the staunchly pro-Western and anti-Russian opposition win energy.

“I think the first thing that will happen is that we’ll get sucked into war.”

Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream is on track to develop into the nation’s hottest social gathering within the election, opinion polls point out, although it’s set to lose floor nationally since 2020 when it gained a slender majority in parliament.

Ivanishvili, who was strongly pro-Western all through his social gathering’s first decade in energy, was not accessible to be interviewed for this text, whereas Georgian Dream says it stays dedicated to integration with the West, and to a realistic coverage in direction of neighbouring Russia.

Reuters interviews with a number of former shut associates of the billionaire, in addition to voters on each side of the spectrum and Georgia specialists, supply a window into the affect wielded by this mysterious magnate within the South Caucasus nation.

‘THE CONSOLIDATION OF POWER IS HUGE’

Allies within the highest halls of energy converse of him in near-messianic phrases.

“When the people had lost all hope forever, a man appeared who gave it back to them,” two-time former Prime Minster Irakli Garibashvili mentioned of Ivanishvili’s preliminary election win in 2012, after which he served as premier for one 12 months.

Garibashvili was amongst a string of officers who heaped reward on Ivanishvili, the social gathering’s honorary chair, in speeches at a rally in September when – not like the tycoon – they weren’t shielded by bulletproof glass. Present premier Irakli Kobakhidze mentioned Ivanishvili had sacrificed every little thing, together with his wellbeing, to ship Georgia from political enemies.

Ivanishvili spent a lot of the Nineties in Russia, founding banking, metals and telecoms firms and rising rich within the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

His political opponents paint an image of a power-hungry oligarch who wields harmful management over former Soviet state Georgia. Many dub his social gathering “Russian Dream”. Some model him a Kremlin asset, with out presenting proof for this.

“He has turned Georgia into a private company, of which he is the 100% owner,” mentioned Gia Khukhashvili, Ivanishvili’s former high political adviser, who helped him launch Georgian Dream earlier than their relationship broke down in 2014 when Khukhashvili accused him of retaining energy from behind the scenes.

Giorgi Gakharia, who served as a Georgian Dream prime minister from 2019-21 and resigned after accusing Ivanishvili of interfering in authorities issues, echoed the critique.

“The consolidation of power is huge,” mentioned Gakharia, who now leads the For Georgia social gathering, considered one of 4 predominant blocs of Georgia’s splintered opposition operating within the Oct. 26 election.

“There is not even one independent institution anymore in this country,” mentioned Gakharia, who listed the heads of Georgia’s central financial institution, electoral fee, state audit workplace and judiciary as all being finally answerable to the magnate.

“All these people are directly connected with Ivanishvili. They are loyal to him.”

Georgia’s justice ministry, audit workplace and central financial institution did not reply to requests for remark. The electoral fee mentioned options it was influenced by the ruling social gathering have been “unfounded and detrimental to the integrity of the electoral process.”

‘180-DEGREE TURN’ ON WEST RHETORIC

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ivanishvili has all however reversed Georgia’s long-standing alignment with the West, one which he himself championed whereas prime minister in 2012-13.

This 12 months, the Georgian Dream authorities has pushed by means of payments on “foreign agents”, which requires organisations receiving greater than 20% of funding from overseas to register as such, and cracked down on LGBT rights, choices praised by Moscow and denounced by critics as anti-democratic and Russian-inspired.

The strikes, together with elevated anti-Western rhetoric from Tbilisi, have led to the U.S. and EU suspending some assist to Georgia and the bloc freezing the nation’s membership utility.

Giorgi Margvelashvili, Georgia’s president in 2013-18 and a detailed colleague of Ivanishvili in opposition and the early years in energy, mentioned the billionaire had appeared sincerely pro-Western whereas in frontline politics.

He described him as a relaxed, strategic thinker who sought to steadiness a pro-EU and NATO coverage with an crucial to keep away from frightening Georgia’s huge northern neighbour.

Margvelashvili mentioned there had nonetheless been a brand new hostility in Ivanishvili’s anti-West rhetoric because the Ukraine conflict, a shift which appeared to him deeply out of character.

“We can only speculate what forced Bidzina Ivanishvili into this kind of political turmoil,” Margvelashvili mentioned. “Suddenly changing the rhetoric 180 degrees is not his style.”

NATO agreed at a 2008 Budapest summit that Georgia would finally develop into a member. That was a couple of months earlier than the conflict with Russia, and little progress has been made since.

Many Georgians are cautious of the ordeal of Ukraine, the place the pro-Western Maidan protests of 2013-2014 ousted a pro-Russian authorities earlier than Moscow annexed Crimea and started supplying arms to separatists within the nation’s east.

Russian officers have repeatedly mentioned they do not intervene with sovereign states and have accused the West of meddling in Georgian politics. Russia’s overseas spy chief Sergei Naryshkin mentioned this month he was positive Georgians would make the “correct” alternative and vote for “healthy, patriotic forces”.

Ex-adviser Khukhashvili mentioned Ivanishvili had advised him that he left Russia after Putin’s rise to energy in 2000, believing the president would crack down on politically bold businessmen. Khukhashvili mentioned Ivanishvili’s shift in overseas coverage because the Ukraine battle was an try to spare himself and Georgia from Putin’s wrath.

Ivanishvili himself took an enormous hit within the West in 2020, when a rogue banker at Credit score Suisse embezzled about $1 billion of his money. Although a lot of the cash has been recovered, his allies have cited the case as proof that he’s underneath “de facto” U.S. sanctions. The U.S. has repeatedly mentioned that Ivanishvili hasn’t been sanctioned.

LET ‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’ LEAD GEORGIA

Natalie Sabanadze, a former Georgian ambassador to the EU, advised Reuters Georgian Dream additionally drew power from the unpopularity of the opposition, which has struggled to shake off its affiliation with the divisive determine of former Georgian chief Mikheil Saakashvili, who dominated till 2012 and is now serving a six-year jail time period for abuse of energy.

Regardless of deteriorating relations with the West, the ruling social gathering can nonetheless depend on a “status-quo factor”, particularly amongst rural and public-sector staff, mentioned Sabanadze, a senior analysis fellow at London think-tank Chatham Home.

Certainly, within the poor, rural western a part of Georgia the place Ivanishvili grew up, he is revered by many locals as a philanthropist. Levan Ivanashvili, district mayor within the city of Sachkhere, identified tasks financed by the favorite son: three faculties, a soccer stadium, swimming pool, hospital and resort, in addition to a restoration of the historic fortress.

Different voters have had sufficient.

“Mr Ivanishvili has done positive things for Georgia in the past, but he has declined, Georgia under him is declining,” Nikoloz Shurgaia mentioned at an opposition rally in Tbilisi. “Let a new generation of politicians, ordinary people, lead Georgia to a better future.”