Can Georgia’s shadowy despot survive?
On November 28th, the day the Georgian government announced it was suspending talks on joining the EU, the Royal District Theatre in Tbilisi performed “Phaedra in Flames”, a contemporary take on a Greek myth that deals with power, politics and emancipation. That night, the actors took no curtain call. Still in their wigs and make-up, they led the audience out onto Freedom Square, where tens of thousands had again gathered to protest against the reclusive oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili and his cronies, who have captured the Georgian state.
The drama has been sustained for more than two months now. Its energy comes in waves, and takes new forms, such as marches, strikes and flashmobs, but is not going away. Every night people block the square and Tbilisi’s main artery, Rustaveli Avenue. On February 3rd there was an extra-big protest. The police responded with their trademark violence, beating demonstrators and detaining several activists and two opposition leaders.
The immediate demands of the protesters are new elections and the release of all political prisoners, including Mzia Amaglobeli, a prominent journalist who has been on hunger strike since January 12th. But what is really at stake is Georgia’s future. Is it to be a modern European country or, should Mr Ivanishvili have his way, a backwater under Russia’s domination?
A post-Soviet oligarch, Mr Ivanishvili had a $6bn fortune—equal to over a third of the country’s annual GDP—when he founded the Georgian Dream party in 2012. It won an election that year, and has held power ever since. Mr Ivanishvili holds no elected office, but runs the country from behind the scenes. For a decade he paid lip-service to Western institutions, especially the EU and NATO, while treating Georgia as a personal fief, installing his associates in key government positions.
Although Mr Ivanishvili’s government did “precisely nothing”, according to Giorgi Kadagidze, a former head of the central bank, the economy trudged along. Georgia drifted, the West lost interest and Mr Ivanishvili entertained himself by replanting 100-year-old trees in his residence and building a private zoo.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 changed all of that. Georgians, also victims of Russian occupation, rallied behind the Ukrainians. The EU urged Georgia to apply for candidate status, along with Ukraine and Moldova, and at the same time the European Parliament recommended that Mr Ivanishvili should be penalised with sanctions for his oligarchic influence. That did not happen, but the oligarch saw the move as blackmail. George Bachiashvili, his former asset manager, says the prospect of sanctions has caused his old boss’s bankers to become cautious to the point of being unco-operative.
Mr Ivanishvili grew yet more alarmed when in December 2023 the EU granted Georgia candidate status, with the important proviso that he should not have total control over the judiciary and other levers of power. The vast majority of Georgians saw this as an opportunity; he saw it as a conspiracy. “The way he thinks, everything must be under his control: people, trees, animals,” says Mr Bachiashvili, who now faces a prison sentence after falling out with his old boss.
Unable simply to turn his back on EU membership, which the great majority of Georgians aspire to, Mr Ivanishvili started to sabotage accession. The Imedi media channel, a mouthpiece for Georgian Dream, demonised the West as a “global war party” that has been dragging Georgia into armed conflict, and portrayed Georgia’s liberal donors as a bunch of pro-LGBT conspirators who were plotting a revolution and threatening the country’s identity.
The party then enacted a Russian-style “foreign agents” law that targets Western funding of Georgian civil society, as well as a law blocking LGBT rights, including gay marriage. On November 28th it announced the suspension of negotiations with the EU. Georgia’s cities erupted and the government responded with a level of violence and repression which the country has not seen since Soviet times.
Mr Ivanishvili is now faced with a choice: resolve the crisis through new elections or resort to yet heavier repression. Several factors may make him think twice about the iron fist. One is the economy. Georgia’s economy is private, liberal and highly dependent on foreign investment; its banks and companies are plugged into the Western financial system. Foreign direct investment dropped by 40% last year and the capital inflow from international institutions fell by almost half, says Nika Gilauri, a former prime minister. The central bank has spent nearly 20% of its reserves propping up the currency.
Even more than a financial crisis, the business families around Mr Ivanishvili fear sanctions, which the West has threatened but hardly imposed. And as Mr Kadagidze explains, they fear being stigmatised by their own children, most of whom sympathise with the protesters. “In Georgian culture, you want to be a hero to your children, it is a big deal,” he says.
Nervousness is palpable in Tbilisi. Take Irakly Rukhadze, an American citizen who owns Imedi. While his channel continues to pump out anti-Western and homophobic tripe, he insists that he is fully pro-Western and is sending signals to the American government about the need for negotiations.
Giorgy Gakharia, Georgia’s prime minister from 2019 to 2021, says the “power pyramid” that Mr Ivanishvili has built there is supported by about only 50 families. Most of their assets and children are in the West. “All these people, law-enforcement bosses, business, media, church, they are so connected with each other.” If some of them start defecting, the pyramid will crumble. On January 14th Mr Gakharia, who now leads an opposition party, was beaten up by thugs. “This is a message personally from Ivanishvili,” he said in his Tbilisi home, his face covered in bruises.
Luckily for Mr Ivanishvili, Georgia’s opposition is too disparate and distrusted by the protesters to present a consolidating figure or party that would attract defectors. And he is hoping that the activists will tire and leave for Europe. He also calculates that Europe is too weak and America too distracted to deal with Georgia. The message that Georgian Dream is putting out to the EU flag-waving crowd is that the West will betray them. But the drama could still end with a very different twist. ■
Editor’s note (February 12th): This article has been changed to reflect an error in our sourcing. Apologies.
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