The third coming

The richest man in Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili once again returned to politics and changed the prime minister

The deputies of the Hand Party of the Georgian Dream billionaire denied this to the last, but the fact: Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili retires, his chair retires to Irakli Kobakhidze, the chairman of the ruling party, Georgian Dream. The presentation of the new prime minister is expected on February 1 at the next congress of the ruling party. On the sidelines they already say that the office will be updated: new ministers of defense, justice, health care, and foreign affairs will come.

No one can explain exactly why billionaire Ivanishvili needs these personnel movements in the pre -election year. It remains to admit that Ivanishvili really controls the country manually.

Honorary Chairman

When Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is usually shining journalists, still talks about his participation in Russian politics in the 90s, he proudly mentions the “Semibankirschir”-the support of the election campaign Boris Yeltsin. Apparently, at the same time he adopted a trick with an announcement of important personnel permutations for the New Year - political technologists believe that at this time everything is perceived more positively.

On December 30, the ruling party of Georgia unexpectedly for everyone held its sixth congress at which Bidzina Ivanishvili appeared. The party’s asset, which recently changed several times, watched his performance, holding his breath.

Most of the party elite, including, for example, the speaker of the parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, had never seen Ivanishvili live before.

In such an environment, the founder of the party, which has been in power for almost 12 years, announced that he was returning to politics, although he had already promised to “never do it again” twice ..

At the congress, the position of the “Honorary Chairman” was announced, which was unanimously elected “The Founder of the Party and the Creator of the Democratic Fracture of 2012” by Bidzin Ivanishvili.

Perhaps in some other political galaxies the position of honorary chairman is symbolic. But Ivanishvili really has everything: he received the right to represent the prime ministers. According to the Constitution, the premiere approves the parliament after the presentation of the ruling party, but the GM does not see any discrepancies. Bidzina Ivanishvili is today both the parliament and the government. And all the premieres are the former employees of his Bank "Card".

REFERENCE
Bidzina Ivanishvili, according to the latest Forbes rating , occupies 545th place among the richest people in the world, his fortune is estimated at $ 4.9 billion. And according to the rating of Bloomberg, Ivanishvili takes 407th place, and his fortune is estimated at $ 5.95 billion. The expenditure part of the consolidated budget of Georgia for 2023 amounted to about 10.6 billion dollars.

At the congress, Ivanishvili read his speech from the television room, and not a single proposal was accidental. He turned out that the ruling party may be about to be mired in corruption and internal squabbles, and all because the too weak opposition was “self-destructive” and cannot control such a strong “dream”:

“The lack of opposition can easily cause dizziness in the ruling party and relax it ... there is a temptation of far -fetched confrontation inside the party. The risk of corruption also increases, for which extraordinary insurance is needed. All this made me make an unpleasant decision to return to politics. ”

Ivanishvili spent parallels with his second return to politics - in 2018. He suddenly said that the then “EU Ambassador to Georgia”, with whom they “were friends of families,” told him that if not for his return, “there would be nothing left of the party a month later.”

“Then I fulfilled my mission, re -tidied up the team, established the system, and only after that I left politics for the second time. In addition, I have already had a retirement age. ”

In February of this year, Ivanishvili will be 67 years old, but, apparently, this is no longer a reason to sit out in his estate on the Black Sea and transplant to the personal sector, delivered from Kenya Baobaba. It has become inconvenient to manage the country in telephone mode.

“The geopolitical situation around our country has become complicated, and the challenges have increased. In such conditions, even small government mistakes can do the country very expensive, ”Ivanishvili said at the congress and immediately confirmed that the main foreign policy task of Georgia was to join the EU.

He also claimed that he did not doubt the victory of “dreams” in the autumn elections, and again sharpened his attention to corruption. The expression of people in many delegates of the congress became depressed.

“If the elections were held today, then the“ dream ”would receive 90-100 out of 150 mandates in parliament, even without conducting the election campaign,” he said. - Accordingly, my main goal is not the election strengthening of the party, but the protection of a too intensified party from human temptations. <...>

We have the opportunity to fully protect our national identity, completely restore the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, to introduce Georgia into the list of high income countries until 2030 and join the European Union. ”

A standing ovation was planned in this place, and Ivanishvili paused, but the audience was so tense that the applause followed with a three -second delay.

The honorary chairman also stated at the congress that he would not become the prime minister and would not change the current head of government. However, a month passed, and on January 29 Irakli Garibashvili said goodbye to the post of prime minister. For the second time.

Nothing new

Bidzina Ivanishvili openly appeared in Georgian politics in 2011, when he decided to become a competitor in the election of pro -Western president Mikhail Saakashvili. The reforms of Saakashvili Ivanishvili at one time admired, not forgetting to emphasize that many of them financed. For example, he created a fund for salaries for officials for the first time after the “Rose Revolution” in 2003, contained barracks of the Ministry of Defense, bought cars for the police.

Then Ivanishvili managed to unite the opposition around the claims to the authoritarianism of Saakashvili, and in 2012 his coalition won the elections. A significant role in this victory was played by the fact that the Ivanishvili campaign was accompanied by distribution of household appliances and endless promises of “free money” for everyone, “$ 5 million to each village” and even resolving the issue with Abkhazia through its “purchase”. After 12 years, none of this happened. But the government continues to consider Saakashvili a "bloody dictator."

Many analysts had questions how Ivanishvili managed to easily and quickly sell their assets in Russia before the start of his political career in Georgia.

Since then, he has been constantly suspected of relations with Moscow, and the British Guardian even claimed that Ivanishvili was still owning a large package of Gazprom’s shares.

In the fall of 2022, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) called Ivanishvili oligarch in its report and accused of "capturing the state", expressed in the impunity of corrupt officials, the economic dependence of Georgia on Russia, and also in the latter Ivanishvili has a secret business.

Ivanishvili was a citizen of Russia, and France, and Georgia. It is difficult to say what citizenship he has now - in an interview with the Russian Forbes in 2013, after resigning from the post of prime minister, he stated that all members of his family (wife and four children) are still citizens of the Russian Federation, and he can obtain Russian citizenship at any time.

Ivanishvili is also a gentleman of the French Order of the Legion of Honor for the tens of millions of dollars in the form of a contribution to the fight against the Pandemia of Coronavirus.

Whatever the country of Ivanishvili is, most of all he loves to be at home, in his residence on the seashore or in the native mountain village of Chorville. Political bustle does not fit into the daily routine of a billionaire, who, as they say, goes to bed no later than ten in the evening.

Ivanishvili stayed at the premiere of exactly a year and in November 2013 resigned, getting rid of the public duties that clearly burdened him. After himself, he appointed the prime minister of 31-year-old Irakli Garibashvili, who became the youngest head of government in the history of Georgia.

Garibashvili came to the view of the billionaire thanks to friendship with the eldest son of the Ivanishvili family while studying in France. Since then, he has become a trustee in all kinds of matters.

For the first time, Garibashvili lasted two years as the prime minister. It was removed very rudely, without warning, on the New Year - December 23, 2015. They say that he made a New Year's appeal when he was announced to disgrace. In expert circles, they decided that Ivanishvili angered rumors about corruption transactions of relatives of Garibashvili.

After the resignation of Garibashvili for several years, he completely fell out of political life, but then returned as a party functionary, and then the Minister of Defense. In the government, he behaved very modestly, until in 2021, due to disagreements with the party leadership, a noisy resignation of the most successful prime minister of “Dream”, George Gakharia, occurred. Then Garibashvili and received his second chance and again headed the government.

In any case, not a single prime minister in the Government of the “Georgian Dream” lasted for more than three years. Those politicians who had to work with Ivanishvili say that changing personnel is his style.

But the return of Ivanishvili to politics is not at all with the fact that the premieres are poorly working. The opposite is true. His appearance in 2018 is explained by the fact that the party has risen a crisis, which has already appeared in public debate in parliament. And the rather successful Prime Minister Georgy Kvirikashvili then intensified too much and, from the point of view of Ivanishvili, posed a threat. It was about this threat, as Ivanishvili claimed at the congress, that the EU ambassador told him, but we are unlikely to find out what the diplomat actually had in mind and how his words were perceived by a suspicious billionaire.

In January 2021, Ivanishvili again announced his “final departure from politics”, almost vulgarizing that he would not call, advise, criticize the government, and also speak publicly. Six months later, he violated this promise in order to give anathema to the former Prime Minister George Gakharia-the first of his ex-Prime Ministers to create a completely successful opposition party.

By the way, in the party of Gakharia “for Georgia”, apparently, they remember the fears of Ivanishvili and stubbornly spread rumors that Garibashvili “passed” his cartridge to international partners, complaining of his informal management. In this regard, Garibashvili once met too actively with the adviser to the US President in National Security Jake Sullivan. As a result, if it was revenge from Gakharia, then it was quite a success.

Another Irakli

Apparently, Ivanishvili never seriously perceived the members of his own parliamentary majority: this time, the news that Irakli Garibashvili is resigned, and the party chairman Irakli Kobahidze will come to his place, deputies from the ruling party denied to the last.

Both pro -government and opposition television companies have already announced this decision, and the speaker of the parliament and deputies from the “Dream” still called the news “speculation”. Well, then in the comments there was a message “so it will be better for the country”, although in fact no one still understood what exactly one Irakli is better than another.

For both terms as Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, he was remembered by corruption scandals, friendship with the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, the announcement of China with a strategic partner, as well as Georgia the status of an EU candidate under the slogan “to Europe with dignity” - it is assumed that such a slogan must reassure a conservative electorate, worrying about the preservation of the National identity. "

The latest scandal: last year the prime minister decided to send the eldest son to study in the United States a government flight. Carter cost 34 thousand euros. When the opposition television companies raised the noise, the prime minister said that his father allegedly paid for the flight: he is a 71-year-old pensioner, he is engaged in business. “I'm not from a poor family at all,” Garibashvili said then. Apparently, for the same reason, he gave his wife a plot with a forest at a winter resort in Bakuriani, collected a collection of luxurious hours worth half a million dollars and did not refuse his wife in expensive cars.

Nevertheless, it is not worth considering that Garibashvili was removed due to egregious facts of corruption, the opposition deputy Roman Gotsiridze believes:

“When Ivanishvili was the Prime Minister in 2013, the Georgian state budget was 8 billion Lari. Today, the united state budget is 28 billion, while 23 billion is spent only for infrastructure projects, and Ivanishvili perfectly sees how money disappears on these projects:

100 million evaporated only on the project of the District Road Samtredi - Grigoleti, which connects the Black Sea resorts.

Ivanishvili saw that total theft had begun. He distributed the sphere for his “team”, but he had the principle of “steal, but with my permission”. And now, when there is a lot of money and there is no balance in power, it is impossible to control everyone, starting from the municipality, ending with large streams in infrastructure projects. Controlled corruption has grown into uncontrolled. ”

Political scientist Giya Khukhashvili, a former adviser to a billionaire, so commented on the frightened faces of the leaders of the "dream" after the New Year's appeal Ivanishvili:

“They had an illusion that they were managing something. Now she has disappeared. Ivanishvili must approximately punish someone. The stability of the system, according to Ivanishvili, was built on absolute power, he does not need political partners. He used to control everything on the phone for some time. And then these little boys began to make money, they had new ambitions. ”

Interestingly, Garibashvili does not leave politics at all, as it was after his first resignation. He will become the chairman of the party, “unresponsive,” as they are already joking in Tbilisi.

Garibashvili really has quite a lot of supporters in the form of a conservative electorate, so Ivanishvili can use it during the election campaign. And after the election - who knows? - Garibashvili can become the prime minister for the third time. After all, it is already clear that the Georgian Dream is experiencing an acute personnel crisis. Otherwise, it is impossible to explain the performance of Irakli Kobahidze, which, to put it mildly, is not popular among liberals or among conservatives.

In addition, the prime minister is a person who is engaged in the main economy for Ivanishvili. Kobahidze has nothing to do with the economy - he is a lawyer, a constitutionalist by education.

Irakli Kobahidze is 45 years old, in the Georgian Dream party since 2015. Thanks to the uncompromising attacks on the opposition in 2016, he became the speaker of the parliament. He was also “resigned” - in 2019, Kobahidze was in the center of the scandal associated with the Russian deputy Sergei Gavrilov: then the emergence of a parliamentarian from Moscow at the International Forum of Orthodoxy in the Georgian Parliament grew into a spontaneous rally, street riots on Rustaveli Avenue and the fierce acceleration of the crowd, during which several people lost their vision. “Gavrilov’s night” cost Kobahidze a position, but in 2021 he took the place of the chairman of the party and from there he influenced the agenda in parliament.

By the way, he goes to parliament, as well as to the university, where Kobahidze continues to teach the right, he goes with numerous security, which is not very accepted in Georgia.

Kobahidze also became famous for his undeveloped statements to European and American diplomats. Perhaps now, as the prime minister, he will change this rhetoric, especially if Ivanishvili requires this.

The state is he

In the opposition of the Roking of Ivanishvili, no one is surprised, they habitually declare that, whoever was at the head of the Government of the Dream, Ivanishvili will be a real prime minister.

However, the former ally of Ivanishvili, according to the coalition, the politician Eka Beselia is sure that the appointment of Kobahidze will be a “tragicomic case”, and advises the billionaire not to take such a step.

According to her, if Garibashvili had the courage to at least discuss his different opinion on the controversial issue, then Kobahidze “does not have such a filter”, and he will be a “cold -blooded artist”.

Beselia claims that Ivanishvili has the Owner of the “Crisis of Management in the Relting Team” and he may make a mistake by appointing Kobahidze the prime minister:

“This is not amenable to logical explanation. How can the country offer such a fully controlled prime minister, the performer of all bad affairs?

Как можно было так резко отпускать Гарибашвили в выборный год, когда мы под особым наблюдением ЕС? Такое ощущение, что он сознательно хочет проиграть выборы. Для оппозиции это подарок».

Между тем метания в «Мечте» не отменяют того факта, что и оппозиция пока не в лучшей форме.

Согласно последним опросам Международного республиканского института США (IRI), рейтинг «Мечты» — 25%, партия Саакашвили «Национальное движение», переживающая раскол, имеет 13%, а большинство мелких оппозиционных партий вряд ли преодолеют на выборах необходимый для попадания в парламент пятипроцентный барьер.

Тем не менее грузинская оппозиция полна оптимизма и обещает обязательно использовать возвращение Иванишвили в политику в свою пользу.

Находящийся в клинике на лечении заключенный экс-президент Грузии Михаил Саакашвили назвал назначение Кобахидзе на должность премьера «очередной насмешкой олигарха над грузинским народом».

«Единственная цель этой банды — дальнейшее обогащение Бидзины и усиление правительства. Судьба людей их совершенно не волнует», — написал Саакашвили в соцсетях.