Do not risk war with Russia, warns Georgia’s richest man ahead of polls

The presence of Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of Georgia’s ruling party, looms large over the European country caught between Russia and the West; he has cast Saturday’s polls as an existential fight to prevent a ‘Global War Party’ in the West from pushing Tbilisi into a ruinous conflict with Moscow.

Georgia’s saviour. Russia’s stooge. Philanthropist. Oligarch. Bidzina Ivanishvili has been called all these things, and more.

The billionaire, Georgia’s richest person and the founder of its ruling party, is seldom seen in public and, of late, almost exclusively behind bulletproof glass. Yet, his presence looms large over this small European country caught between Russia and the West and an election that could shape its destiny.

Mr. Ivanishvili can gaze down on downtown Tbilisi from a massive steel-and-glass clifftop mansion that rears about 60 metres over the capital. He indulges exotic passions like keeping sharks and zebras and collecting rare trees.

Powerful figure

The 68-year-old is viewed by many friends and foes alike as Georgia’s most powerful figure, or eminence grise, even though he hasn’t held public office for over a decade.

He has cast Saturday’s election as an existential fight to prevent a “Global War Party” in the West pushing Georgia into a ruinous conflict 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 said 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 EU and which only sees Georgia and Ukraine as cannon fodder.”

While most of Georgia’s 3.7 million people are keen to move closer to the West by joining the EU and NATO, and largely don’t trust Russia, opinion polls show, Mr. Ivanishvili’s message resounds with many who want to avoid Ukraine’s fate at all costs.

Memories are fresh of a 2008 war with Russia over the Moscow-backed breakway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which lasted five days and ended in Georgia’s defeat.

The 75-year-old retired civil servant, Oleg Machavariani, fears a rerun of history should the staunchly pro-Western and anti-Russian opposition win power. “I think the first thing that will happen is that we’ll get sucked into war.”

Mr. Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream is on course to become the country’s most popular party in the election, opinion polls indicate, though it is set to lose ground nationally.

Georgian Dream says it remains committed to integration with the West, and to a pragmatic policy towards neighbouring Russia.

Allies in the highest halls of power speak of him in near-messianic terms.

“When the people had lost all hope forever, a man appeared who gave it back to them,” former Prime Minster Irakli Garibashvili said of Mr. Ivanishvili’s initial election win in 2012, after which he served as Premier for one year.

Mr. Ivanishvili spent much of the 1990s in Russia, founding banking, metals and telecoms companies and growing wealthy in the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Power-hungry oligarch

His political opponents paint a picture of a power-hungry oligarch who wields dangerous control over former Soviet state Georgia. Many dub his party “Russian Dream”. Some brand him a Kremlin asset, without presenting evidence for this.

“He has turned Georgia into a private company, of which he is the 100% owner,” said Gia Khukhashvili, Ivanishvili’s former top political adviser, who helped him launch Georgian Dream.

Giorgi Gakharia, who served as a Georgian Dream Prime Minister from 2019-21 and resigned after accusing Mr. Ivanishvili of interfering in government matters, echoed the critique.

“The consolidation of power is huge,” said Mr. Gakharia, who now leads the For Georgia party, one of four main blocs of Georgia’s splintered Opposition running in the October 26 election.

“There is not even one independent institution any more in this country,” said Mr. Gakharia, who listed the heads of Georgia’s central bank, electoral commission, state audit office and judiciary as all being ultimately answerable to the magnate. “They are loyal to him.”

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Mr. Ivanishvili has all but reversed Georgia’s long-standing alignment with the West, one which he himself championed while Prime Minister in 2012-13.

This year, the Georgian Dream government has pushed through bills on “foreign agents”, which requires organisations receiving more than 20% of funding from abroad to register as such, and cracked down on LGBT rights, decisions praised by Moscow and denounced by critics as anti-democratic and Russian-inspired.

The moves, along with increased anti-Western rhetoric from Tbilisi, have led to the U.S. and EU suspending some aid to Georgia and the bloc freezing the country’s membership application.

Calm, strategic thinker

Giorgi Margvelashvili, Georgia’s president in 2013-18 and a close colleague of Mr. Ivanishvili in Opposition, said the billionaire had appeared sincerely pro-Western while in frontline politics.

He described him as a calm, strategic thinker who sought to balance a pro-EU and NATO policy with an imperative to avoid provoking Georgia’s vast northern neighbour.

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

Published - October 23, 2024 10:41 am IST