<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/27/who-is-bidzina-ivanishvili-the-shadowy-billionaire-founder-of-georgian-dream>
"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."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
