Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Premier of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili told the Estonian “Postimees” that he intended to leave his position after the election of a new president in this October: “I will leave a few days after the presidential elections,” the head of the ruling coalition said. He is not only wants to resign from the position of the prime minister, but also plans to withdraw from politics. “I want to take a more complicated position – to be a member of the civil society and control power together with it,” Ivanishvili promised.
Considering the systemic weakness of the civil society in Georgia, the statement means that Ivanishvili will willingly gives up power. But why has the man who won the parliamentary elections and gained the huge support of the population decided to leave? Everybody who knows Ivanishvili personally say that he is not playing and sincerely wants to withdraw from politics.
The coalition headed by Ivanishvili consists of absolutely different politicians who often represent opposite concepts of the country’s development. They were united by the desire to displace Mikhail Saakashvili and the United National Movement; but when the goal is reached and there is no strong leader anymore, Georgian Dream may appear not to be able to rule the state.
It seems the decisions by the prime minister can be explained by two mutually connected reasons. The first one is psychological – Ivanishvili doesn’t need power in itself. The billionaire has plenty of material benefits, and pure power over people is senseless to him. Moreover, it appears that Ivanishvili has no alternative project of the country’s development. His only project was to overturn Saakashvili. It was successfully fulfilled; but the billionaire has no other projects. It is connected with the second deep reason for rejecting power: power requires not only rights, but also responsibilities and duties. Ivanishvili made sure that strategic economic and political problems of Georgia, including external risks, didn’t disappear with Saakashvili’s withdrawal from the political stage. After the presidential election he will have no opportunity to explain failures by “tough heritage” and to lay responsibility on the president. The economic situation in the country is getting worse and worse: in May the GDP growth stopped. This has happened for the first time since 1994. Even in the context of the world financial crisis of 2008-2010 Saakashvili and his team managed to maintain the growth at the level of 4-5%.
The situation can lead to losses of hundred thousand jobs, problems in the banking sphere, and a weakening of the national currency. Ivanishvili doesn’t know what to do with this: the GDP growth was provided by Saakashvili due to authoritarian regime and hand control of economy and Western financial support. Ivanishvili destroyed the system; but he cannot propose a new one because an alternative system will demand settlement of crucial problems: providing stability, devaluation of external risks, and opening new markets. The problems cannot be solved without an agreement with Moscow, while Georgian Premier doesn’t want to go against the mainstream of Georgian politics of recent 25 years. As for the Western financial support, it was reduced by the administration of Barack Obama.
Thus, Ivanishvili would get only pure power with its duties. Now he tell the society who counted on him: “I promised to you Georgia without Saakashvili, the rest you should build by yourself without me by electing two leaders who would be able to take responsibility.”
