Pjotr Sauer in Tbilisi
THE GUARDIAN
Sun 27 October 2024
Bidzina Ivanishvili has largely exerted his influence from behind the scenes since his short tenure as prime minister from 2012 to 2013.Photograph: Shakh Aivazov/AP
In the winding streets of ancient Tbilisi, one is ever under his watchful gaze. From a hilltop glass mansion, likened by critics to a Bond villain’s lair, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s wealthiest and most influential figure, has guided the country’s shift away from the west over more than a decade.
With his party’s latest victory in the pivotal parliamentary elections on Saturday, that trajectory appears set to continue for years to come, sparking warnings from opponents that Ivanishvili plans to dismantle Georgia’s fragile three-decade experiment with democracy while blocking any viable path to EU integration.
Since his short tenure as prime minister from 2012 to 2013, the secretive oligarch, whose wealth is estimated to be $7.5bn in a country whose GDP is $30bn, has largely exerted his influence from behind the scenes and is widely described by many Georgians as the country’s “puppet master”.
But Ivanishvili grinned widely in public on Saturday night at his party’s HQ as the country’s election commission announced that the ruling Georgian Dream party he founded had won 54% of the vote, a result that will secure its hold on power for another four years.
After his speech, fireworks lit up the sky, their loud bangs echoing through the city, highlighting the despair of an opposition whose hopes of forming a pro-western coalition lay in ruins.
Ivanishvili spent much of the 1990s in Russia, founding banking, metals and telecoms companies and becoming wealthy in the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
When he returned to Georgia and entered politics, he cultivated an air of mystery. His eccentric hobbies, including keeping sharks and zebras and collecting rare trees, gained widespread attention, turning stories of his lavish pursuits into household tales across the country.
As he said once in a rare interview: “I could tell you anything and you wouldn’t be able to check it.”
Ivanishvili took a more visible role in the run-up to Saturday’s election, which was widely seen as a watershed vote that could determine whether Georgia shifts away from its long-held western orientation towards stronger ties with the Kremlin.
The oligarch’s public comeback coincided with a sharp escalation in his party’s anti-liberal and anti-western rhetoric.
In a recent interview laced with transphobic and homophobic rhetoric reminiscent of far-right online forums, Ivanishvili portrayed Georgia as locked in a cultural struggle against the west, accusing it of attempting to impose corrosive values on the nation.
He claimed parents in Europe put pressure on children to undergo gender affirmation surgeries, and that “men’s milk” for babies was regarded as “the same as women’s”.
Ivanishvili advised those who doubted his claims to watch footage of a pride event in Barcelona, alleging that it featured young children present and “all sorts of orgies”.
He also framed his party’s election campaign around accusations that the west, along with the local opposition, was attempting to drag Georgia into a Ukraine-style conflict, a potent message in a country where many fear war with Russia after Vladimir Putin’s troops briefly invaded the country in 2008.
Ivanishvili’s critics and those who once worked with him warn that behind his bombastic rhetoric lies a real danger.
They point to his pledges to ban all major opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers after the elections, labelling them as “criminals” and “traitors”.
“It is very simple, Ivanishvili actually does what he says. He promises to outlaw and jail his opponents and have no reason to doubt he will try to do that,” said Tina Khidasheli, who served as defence minister in a Georgian Dream-led government from 2015 to 2016 and has since become a critic of Ivanishvili.
As his rhetoric hardened, so too did his paranoia. While once comfortable with large crowds, Ivanishvili now travels with a large security cordon, delivering his speeches behind bulletproof glass.
“Staying in power is an existential matter of survival for Ivanshvili,” said Kornely Kakachia, the director of the Georgian Institute of Politics. “He believes that if he loses, his opponents will go not just after his political power but also after his business empire.”
Pointing to the Russian origins of his wealth, opposition parties have long accused Ivanishvili of loyalties to Moscow.
Under his leadership, Georgia enacted a “foreign agents” bill that targeted western-funded NGOs, alongside anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, both measures bearing notable similarities to laws passed by the Kremlin years earlier.
However, seasoned observers have warned against oversimplifying the narrative by framing him as merely a puppet of Putin.
“He is appeasing Russia, but I see no reason to suggest that he is owned or run by Russia and that’s an important distinction,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe and an expert on the region.
Instead, de Waal says Ivanishvili’s tactics mirror those of Viktor Orbán, the divisive leader Hungary. De Waal pointed out that Orbán and Ivinishavili have centred their campaigns on conservative “Christian” values while calling for “peace” in Ukraine without condemning Russia.
Tellingly, Orbán was the first foreign leader to congratulate the Georgian Dream for an “overwhelming victory,” hours before official results were announced.
For now, Georgia’s immediate future remains uncertain. On Sunday morning, Georgia’s opposition refused to concede defeat, accusing the ruling party of staging a “constitutional coup” and calling for protests. This sets the stage for a potential political crisis in a country with a history of mass unrest.
There is little doubt that Ivanishvili has leveraged his seemingly limitless finances to influence the elections, which have been marred by allegations of irregularities, including reports of coercing state employees to vote and instances of vote buying.
Still, the outcome suggests that Ivanishvili’s messages resonate with a core group of Georgian voters, particularly in the industrial heartlands and conservative poorer regions, where economic progress has been slow and the allure of Europe seems distant and faint.
“It is tempting for the opposition to dismiss that Ivanishivli’s party has no support, that they completely bought the elections,” said one western official in Tbilisi. “But the reality is that Ivanishvili appears to have won this battle for the time being.”
Sun 27 October 2024
Bidzina Ivanishvili has largely exerted his influence from behind the scenes since his short tenure as prime minister from 2012 to 2013.Photograph: Shakh Aivazov/AP
In the winding streets of ancient Tbilisi, one is ever under his watchful gaze. From a hilltop glass mansion, likened by critics to a Bond villain’s lair, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s wealthiest and most influential figure, has guided the country’s shift away from the west over more than a decade.
With his party’s latest victory in the pivotal parliamentary elections on Saturday, that trajectory appears set to continue for years to come, sparking warnings from opponents that Ivanishvili plans to dismantle Georgia’s fragile three-decade experiment with democracy while blocking any viable path to EU integration.
Since his short tenure as prime minister from 2012 to 2013, the secretive oligarch, whose wealth is estimated to be $7.5bn in a country whose GDP is $30bn, has largely exerted his influence from behind the scenes and is widely described by many Georgians as the country’s “puppet master”.
But Ivanishvili grinned widely in public on Saturday night at his party’s HQ as the country’s election commission announced that the ruling Georgian Dream party he founded had won 54% of the vote, a result that will secure its hold on power for another four years.
After his speech, fireworks lit up the sky, their loud bangs echoing through the city, highlighting the despair of an opposition whose hopes of forming a pro-western coalition lay in ruins.
Ivanishvili spent much of the 1990s in Russia, founding banking, metals and telecoms companies and becoming wealthy in the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
When he returned to Georgia and entered politics, he cultivated an air of mystery. His eccentric hobbies, including keeping sharks and zebras and collecting rare trees, gained widespread attention, turning stories of his lavish pursuits into household tales across the country.
As he said once in a rare interview: “I could tell you anything and you wouldn’t be able to check it.”
Ivanishvili took a more visible role in the run-up to Saturday’s election, which was widely seen as a watershed vote that could determine whether Georgia shifts away from its long-held western orientation towards stronger ties with the Kremlin.
The oligarch’s public comeback coincided with a sharp escalation in his party’s anti-liberal and anti-western rhetoric.
In a recent interview laced with transphobic and homophobic rhetoric reminiscent of far-right online forums, Ivanishvili portrayed Georgia as locked in a cultural struggle against the west, accusing it of attempting to impose corrosive values on the nation.
He claimed parents in Europe put pressure on children to undergo gender affirmation surgeries, and that “men’s milk” for babies was regarded as “the same as women’s”.
Ivanishvili advised those who doubted his claims to watch footage of a pride event in Barcelona, alleging that it featured young children present and “all sorts of orgies”.
He also framed his party’s election campaign around accusations that the west, along with the local opposition, was attempting to drag Georgia into a Ukraine-style conflict, a potent message in a country where many fear war with Russia after Vladimir Putin’s troops briefly invaded the country in 2008.
Ivanishvili’s critics and those who once worked with him warn that behind his bombastic rhetoric lies a real danger.
They point to his pledges to ban all major opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers after the elections, labelling them as “criminals” and “traitors”.
“It is very simple, Ivanishvili actually does what he says. He promises to outlaw and jail his opponents and have no reason to doubt he will try to do that,” said Tina Khidasheli, who served as defence minister in a Georgian Dream-led government from 2015 to 2016 and has since become a critic of Ivanishvili.
As his rhetoric hardened, so too did his paranoia. While once comfortable with large crowds, Ivanishvili now travels with a large security cordon, delivering his speeches behind bulletproof glass.
“Staying in power is an existential matter of survival for Ivanshvili,” said Kornely Kakachia, the director of the Georgian Institute of Politics. “He believes that if he loses, his opponents will go not just after his political power but also after his business empire.”
Pointing to the Russian origins of his wealth, opposition parties have long accused Ivanishvili of loyalties to Moscow.
Under his leadership, Georgia enacted a “foreign agents” bill that targeted western-funded NGOs, alongside anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, both measures bearing notable similarities to laws passed by the Kremlin years earlier.
However, seasoned observers have warned against oversimplifying the narrative by framing him as merely a puppet of Putin.
“He is appeasing Russia, but I see no reason to suggest that he is owned or run by Russia and that’s an important distinction,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe and an expert on the region.
Instead, de Waal says Ivanishvili’s tactics mirror those of Viktor Orbán, the divisive leader Hungary. De Waal pointed out that Orbán and Ivinishavili have centred their campaigns on conservative “Christian” values while calling for “peace” in Ukraine without condemning Russia.
Tellingly, Orbán was the first foreign leader to congratulate the Georgian Dream for an “overwhelming victory,” hours before official results were announced.
For now, Georgia’s immediate future remains uncertain. On Sunday morning, Georgia’s opposition refused to concede defeat, accusing the ruling party of staging a “constitutional coup” and calling for protests. This sets the stage for a potential political crisis in a country with a history of mass unrest.
There is little doubt that Ivanishvili has leveraged his seemingly limitless finances to influence the elections, which have been marred by allegations of irregularities, including reports of coercing state employees to vote and instances of vote buying.
Still, the outcome suggests that Ivanishvili’s messages resonate with a core group of Georgian voters, particularly in the industrial heartlands and conservative poorer regions, where economic progress has been slow and the allure of Europe seems distant and faint.
“It is tempting for the opposition to dismiss that Ivanishivli’s party has no support, that they completely bought the elections,” said one western official in Tbilisi. “But the reality is that Ivanishvili appears to have won this battle for the time being.”
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