At his first press conference in late 2011, Bidzina Ivanishvili surprised journalists with a booklet, hundreds of which were spread among journalists. Everybody expected the brochure to contain valuable information on the billionaire, his political views or private life and business - in short, everything that could be interesting for journalists about the new politician, who stated: “I do not only want to be the new leader of the country, I will be it after my victory at the elections. I will form the parliamentary majority and begin the process of impeachment of Saakashvili.” However, the booklet was completely devoted to long disagreements (including lawsuits) between one of Tbilisi's media holdings, Aliya, and the bank Kartu, which belongs to Ivanishvili.
Newspaper discussions had been going on a long time, while Ivalishvili preferred to keep silent. But who was interested in this at the first press conference of the politician? When representatives of Aliya called the brochure “waste paper,” Ivanishvili stoked up a war of words and emotions with them. Observers have noted that the billionaire has a very dangerous feature for a politician – sensitivity. He extrapolates his personal relations into the public field. He doesn’t consider the fact that his personal hurt is not interesting to the population.
However, this is not the only example. Ivanishvili was careless to mention his third citizenship in the letter on moving to the opposition. Speaking about readiness to renounce Russian citizenship, “for excluding any suspicions of a pro-Russian position,” the businessman stated his readiness to renounce his French citizenship too. But he became a citizen of France after President Saakashvili gave him Georgian citizenship. So Ivanishvili broke the law, as he didn’t tell the Georgian authorities about it. Soon the government deprived Ivanishvili of Georgian citizenship. Why did nobody advise Ivanishvily to avoid mentioning his third citizenship in the letter?
It should be noted that the man started his career as a cleaner at an enterprise in Kutaisi, but by 40 he has gained one of major capitals in the world. Wicked tongues say that he earned billions in Yeltsin’s Russia, where you could grow rich due to good luck and adeptness only.
Ivanishvili is not eager to remember his Russian past. Today the billionaire proudly states that even though some part of his assets is located in Russia, he is “absolutely independent of Putin.”
Ivanishvili tries to seem even more pro-Western than Saakashvili. The main political partners of the billionaire are the Republican Berdzenishvili brothers and the Free Democrats, including Irakly Alasania. These parties have only one issue with the current president of Georgia – Saakashvili “prevents Georgia from accessing NATO as soon as possible.”
In recent times Ivanishvili permanently emphasizes: “Joining NATO is the only direction of the foreign policy of Georgia.” He refused to take part in acoalition with the former speaker Nino Burdzhanadze, because she has met Vladimir Putin several times.
To be continued
Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to VK
