Ivanishvili in politics: major upheaval in the country

From the point of view of domestic politics 2011 has been quite unstable and full of many incidents. Of major importance has been the arrival on the political scene of Georgian tycoon Ivanishvili which happened towards the end of this year. It considerably ruffled the situation inside the country and created a serious headache for the ruling administration.

At the beginning of 2011 the opposition was divided in to three distinct groups. One was the parliamentary opposition. The non parliamentary opposition was divided into two parts: one was ready to negotiate with the Government on favourable terms for transparent elections, thus hoping to defeat the ruling party; and the other - convinced that there was no chance of changing the governance through elections, turned to street actions. To some extent the non parliamentary opposition was united, attacking the ruling force in two directions. One of these directions was through conducting negotiations, the other was preparing for a new revolution. However on May 26 Tbilisi officials brutally dispersed people rallying in front of the parliament building, and thereafter the opposition’s spirit was broken. Unfortunately there were casualties. The defeat of the so-called “radical opposition” removed any prospect of negotiations and a sit-down with the Government. The opposition then largely disintegrated. Out of the eight opposition parties, two left, the New Rights and Christian Democrats, and started negotiating with the governing administration, later the remaining six also dispersed.

When summer 2011 came to an end it was pretty much assumed that the ruling administration would win the forthcoming parliamentary and later presidential elections. The opposition had been discredited and without any material resources seemed doomed to failure. But the situation changed drastically as soon as Ivanishvili arrived on the political scene. He had very solid financial resources of around USD 6 billion and a very positive image with society built up over the past fifteen years from all of his charity activities.

In fact his appearance created a second political centre which means that there are now two equal political powers in Georgia. He entered Georgian politics very suddenly and his first steps were somewhat controversial. For instance he criticized some politicians and TV channels but later retracted certain statements. There are many controversies surrounding his triple citizenship. He simultaneously had Russian, French and Georgian citizenship and this gave grounds to the Georgian President to deprive him of Georgian citizenship. Therefore according to the constitution he cannot participate in the forthcoming elections. That has now created extra difficulties for him in participating in political life in Georgia. At the same time the ruling force has become very concerned about the situation. The whole governmental machine and state resources have been mobilized and are now targeting Ivanishvili and his new plans. A campaign was launched to discredit Ivanishvili by labelling him Russia’s project amongst other things.

Ivanishvili and his team are not getting involved in the hysteria however, but are steadily getting on with their work. The public movement Georgian Dream was established which was joined in its first two weeks by more than 10,000 people.

Officials are introducing new amendments to the law to create extra obstacles for Ivanishvili to win the elections. Of course the governing officials realize that they are not assured an easy victory anymore however it is unlikely that Ivanishvili will definitely win the elections with a promised majority either. The situation has become aggravated. Despite the attempts of officials to discredit Ivanishvili public opinion about him remains largely positive. The stage is now set, the foes do battle and the winner gets everything.