Dreaming of dictatorship: Kremlin-friendly oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili attempts to take Georgia off the path to Europe

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The “dream” to oust Saakashvili

In Oct. 2011, well-known Georgian-born Russian businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili announced that he was leaving the world of business in order to enter politics. Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, led a reclusive life after returning to Georgia in 2004. In a rare talk with Forbes, he admitted to financially supporting then-president Mikheil Saakashvili’s reforms through the Soros Foundation, but by 2008, he claimed to have come to believe that Georgia had become an autocracy. In 2011, Ivanishvili even considered moving to France but ultimately decided, at his wife’s behest, to stay and “try to help the people.”

Creating his own party wasn’t easy. Fearing competition, Saakashvili revoked Ivanishvili’s Georgian citizenship, citing his possession of Russian and French passports, which violated Georgian law. To enter national politics, Ivanishvili had to renounce both foreign citizenships and undergo a lengthy naturalization process that was not completed until fall 2012. Due to this bureaucratic hurdle, Georgian Dream initially formed as a public movement aimed primarily at challenging Saakashvili.

Who is Bidzina Ivanishvili?

Bidzina Ivanishvili is Georgia’s richest man, with Bloomberg estimating his net worth at $7.25 billion in 2024, placing him 389th on the list of the world’s 500 richest people.

Born in 1956 in Chorvila, a village in western Georgia, Ivanishvili claimed to have returned to his native home in the 2000s and invested his personal wealth in its restoration and development. He made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, initially selling computers before acquiring banking and metals assets at low prices during the privatization of Soviet-era state assets during the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras. Ivanishvili founded Russian Credit bank, mining and metallurgy firm Metalloinvest, and the Doctor Stoletov pharmacy chain, among a range of other businesses.

Ivanishvili left Russia in the early 2000s and claims to have sold all his Russian assets by 2012. However, in 2022, Transparency International revealed that Ivanishvili still conducts business in Russia through offshore companies and proxies. His family was continuing to acquire Russian real estate as recently as 2024. He has also been accused of helping his Russian partners bypass sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Georgia, Ivanishvili similarly acquires property and land using offshore companies.

The evolution of “Georgian Dream”

“Georgian Dream initially formed as a coalition. There was no visible party at first — only Ivanishvili, who aimed to create a coalition. For him, this was something new that would eventually defeat Saakashvili and the National Movement,” recalls political scientist Paata Zakareishvili in an interview with The Insider. Zakareishvili, who participated in this coalition as a member of the Republican Party of Georgia, notes that “for several years before that, the struggle against Saakashvili had been very unproductive.”

By the time of the 2012 parliamentary elections, six opposition parties had joined Ivanishvili’s movement. Despite financial backing and the opposition’s unity, Georgian Dream wasn’t counting on success. As early as the summer of that year, according to polls, Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) was expected to win the elections. However, the release of a video in Sep. 2012 showing the torture of prisoners in Tbilisi’s Gldani prison — first broadcast by Ivanishvili’s Ninth Channel — shifted the tide. This scandal helped the coalition secure victory in the Oct. 1 election, winning 85 out of 150 seats in parliament, while the UNM won just 65. Although Saakashvili continued to serve as president until his party lost another election in the fall of 2013, he was a diminished force politically.

After the election, Ivanishvili became prime minister, taking advantage of constitutional amendments made during Saakashvili’s presidency that granted the head of parliament significant powers. Members of Ivanishvili’s coalition received 11 out of 19 cabinet positions in the new government.

“Today's Georgian Dream and the Georgian Dream of the past are two different political groups. In 2012, it was a very effective government because it was a coalition government,” explains Giorgi Gobronidze, a researcher and professor at the International Black Sea University (IBSU). “It's interesting because it included liberals, conservatives, Georgian leftists, and social democrats. The coalition positioned itself in 2012 as a left-wing social-democratic force.”

With its parliamentary majority, Georgian Dream further limited the executive branch’s powers, restricting the president’s ability to dissolve parliament and form a government independently. This move came amid rumors that Saakashvili was planning to dismiss Ivanishvili’s government. Ultimately, Ivanishvili and Saakashvili coexisted until Oct. 2013.

In the 2013 presidential election, Georgian Dream’s candidate Giorgi Margvelashvili won nearly three times as many votes as UNM’s David Bakradze. Saakashvili, not waiting for the formal end of his second presidential term, left the country after delivering a farewell address to the nation. Ivanishvili’s government was already threatening Saakashvili with criminal charges.

And then, just a month after the presidential election, Ivanishvili announced his retirement from politics, announcing at the Georgian Dream party congress that he had accomplished his task of “liberating the country from Saakashvili’s regime.” Shortly before the speech, Georgia’s parliament had approved a new government led by 31-year-old Irakli Garibashvili — Ivanishvili’s close ally.

The “dream” of absolute power

Irakli Garibashvili was considered a trusted associate of Ivanishvili and the first in a series of the billionaire’s appointees to the post of prime minister. At 31, Garibashvili had already served as Minister of Internal Affairs in Ivanishvili's government, and before entering politics, he headed the “Kartu” charitable foundation, which was also owned by the oligarch.

By the 2016 parliamentary elections, opposition parties that had been part of the 2012 coalition had split from Georgian Dream. Paata Zakareishvili, former State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality from 2012 to 2016 (Georgian Dream’s first term), recalls that the transformation began in 2014–2015: “In 2014, outside the Republican Party and the Free Democrats, a core group of young people started to form — Kobakhidze [Georgia’s current prime minister], Mdinaradze [parliamentary majority leader], Okhanashvili [chairman of the parliamentary law committee] — this team. These guys are the 'talking heads' now, who often speak on behalf of parliament.” Some former coalition members joined Georgian Dream, while others stayed with their parties but did not pass the parliamentary threshold in the next elections. According to Zakareishvili, during this period, Ivanishvili’s views gradually shifted, and his main goal became retaining power.

“Year after year, the coalition was filtered until only Georgian Dream remained. The Republicans left, the Social Democrats left...and a metamorphosis occurred: the left-wing socialist caterpillar turned into a conservative butterfly,” describes researcher Giorgi Gobronidze.

Despite the coalition's breakup, Ivanishvili's power was not weakened. Garibashvili, Georgia’s youngest ever prime minister, resigned in 2015, before the next parliamentary elections. He was succeeded by Giorgi Kvirikashvili, who had served as Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development since 2012 and had previously been CEO of Ivanishvili's Kartu Bank. However, this change had little effect on the balance of political power, as real control remained with Ivanishvili. In the 2016 elections, his party won nearly 49% of the vote in the party-list proportional system, and due to the majoritarian system still in place, they secured 115 out of the 150 seats in parliament. Georgian Dream MPs secured all 13 ministerial positions. The severely weakened UNM, with 27 seats, retained its status as the main opposition force, but its influence was greatly diminished.

The next step in consolidating power came in 2017 with a constitutional amendment transitioning Georgia to a fully parliamentary system. Starting in 2024, the president would be chosen by a 300-member electoral college (150 members of parliament and 150 representatives of local government) rather than through direct elections. Additionally, starting from 2024, parliamentary elections were to be fully proportional. The opposition was dissatisfied that the transition to a proportional system was postponed until 2024, as the mixed system benefited the ruling party. The disagreements were so deep that even President Margvelashvili, who had run as Georgian Dream’s candidate in 2013, vetoed the electoral amendments — though the veto was overridden by Georgian Dream, which held a constitutional majority in parliament.

In 2018, Bidzina Ivanishvili officially returned to politics and once again took over leadership of the party he had founded. Among the reasons for his return, he cited unresolved socio-economic issues, the need to counter the opposition, and the fact that “certain internal conflicts had already begun within the government, which exceeded the acceptable boundaries of democratic debate and differences of opinion,” as Ivanishvili explained at a party congress. The split within the ruling party, composed entirely of individuals loyal to Ivanishvili, was seen as the primary reason for the oligarch’s return to politics. However, opposition figures pointed out that Ivanishvili’s return was merely a formality — the billionaire had never stopped controlling the country and was now simply “stepping out of the shadows.”

In 2018, Georgia held its last direct presidential election. Salome Zourabichvili emerged victorious. Although she ran as an independent candidate, her campaign was supported by Georgian Dream. However, over time, their relationship became increasingly strained — for instance, Zourabichvili vetoed the “foreign agents” law, though the parliament later overrode her veto. If Georgian Dream wins the 2024 parliamentary elections, the constitutional amendments passed in 2018 would allow the party to elect a fully “controlled” candidate for president when Zourabichvili’s term ends later this year.

“Gavrilov’s Night” in Tbilisi

In 2019, the Georgian parliament hosted a session of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy with a delegation from Russia. Russian State Duma MP Sergei Gavrilov led the session in Russian and — with the support of Ivanishvili’s parliamentary majority — took the speaker’s chair. The opposition considered this an insult to Georgia, and the incident sparked mass protests across Tbilisi.

The events, later known as “Gavrilov’s Night,” caused problems not only in Georgian-Russian relations but also for the Georgian authorities. Parliamentary speaker Irakli Kobakhidze was forced to resign shortly after the protests began, and just over a month later, Georgia again had a new prime minister: Giorgi Gakharia, the former Minister of Internal Affairs took the place of Mamuka Bakhtadze, who stepped down.

In the 12 years of Georgian Dream’s rule, the country’s PM has changed seven times: Bidzina Ivanishvili, Irakli Garibashvili, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Mamuka Bakhtadze, Giorgi Gakharia, Irakli Garibashvili for a second term, and Irakli Kobakhidze. None of them remained in office for even three years, and each was considered an Ivanishvili appointee — as were most of the party leaders and government officials after 2016.

Following the 2019 protests, parliament adopted measures that seemed to be concessions to the opposition. Amendments to the electoral law were introduced, providing for 120 of parliament’s 150 seats to be determined by proportional voting while also temporarily lowering the threshold for entering parliament from 5% to 1%.

The “dream” of stability

After the 2020 elections, Georgian Dream retained power, and the amendments partly worked in its favor: besides the UNM, seven opposition parties entered parliament, each winning one to five seats, and the result was a further fracturing of the opposition. Despite winning only 48% of the vote, Ivanishvili’s party once again emerged victorious, securing 90 total seats — 60 of them won through the proportional system, plus all 30 mandates in winner-take-all districts.

At the start of 2021, Bidzina Ivanishvili announced his departure from politics once again, this time claiming it was final. “I leave politics proud, victorious, and with gratitude to the people,” he wrote in his farewell letter.

However, Georgian Dream’s third term has been anything but peaceful. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia suffered its largest economic decline since 1994. In the fall of 2021, former President Mikheil Saakashvili returned to the country, where he was promptly arrested, becoming a political prisoner under Ivanishvili’s regime.

Finally, in 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Georgia refused to join international sanctions against Russia, drawing criticism from its Western allies. At the same time, the country faced an unprecedented wave of immigration from Russia, which also sparked discontent among some citizens.

“Dreams” of the West and friendship with the Kremlin

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, Georgian Dream has faced mounting accusations of being pro-Russian. “The first sign that Georgia wasn’t solely looking to the West was our refusal to join sanctions against Russia,” says Giorgi Gobronidze. According to the IBSU professor, the decision not to join sanctions was economically justified, but it was poorly explained by the Georgian authorities: “There are three essential products that generate poverty — wheat flour, sugar, and vegetable oil. We are entirely dependent on Russian imports for all three. Sanctioning Russia could have caused an economic disaster in Georgia due to price fluctuations in these goods. For some reason, our Western partners did not understand this.”

In addition to refusing to join the international sanctions regime, the government in Tbilisi also frequently blocked the entry of Russian opposition figures attempting to enter Georgia. Then, in the spring of 2023, Georgian Dream made its first attempt to pass a law on “foreign agents,” which the country’s citizens quickly dubbed the “Russian law” due to its resemblance to similar legislation passed by Moscow in 2012. After massive protests, the parliament postponed the bill without passing it in the second reading.

However, Tbilisi’s relations with Moscow continued to improve. In May 2023, the countries restored direct flights, which had been suspended by Moscow in 2019 after the aforementioned “Gavrilov’s Night.” Aside from the flights, Russia also introduced a three-month visa-free regime for Georgian citizens.

At the same time, efforts to bring Georgia closer to the European Union intensified. In Mar 2022, Georgia applied for EU membership, along with Ukraine and Moldova. Georgia initially received confirmation of its “European perspective” — the possibility of candidate status if it met several conditions set out by the European Commission. By the end of 2023, despite criticism over its compliance with the EU’s requirements, Georgia officially became an EU candidate. “They may not be a pro-Western government, but, ironically, they are the most pro-Western government we’ve ever had,” Gobronidze says. “They didn’t want this, but it happened.”

The “dream” of retaining a parliamentary majority

Shortly after Georgia obtained EU candidate status, Bidzina Ivanishvili returned to politics once again — this time as honorary chairman of the Georgian Dream party. The position of honorary chairman now had official functions: he was declared the party’s chief political advisor, with the right to convene party council meetings and even propose a candidate for the post of prime minister.

Ivanishvili’s return led to further reshuffling in both the party and the government. Prime Minister Garibashvili and party chairman Irakli Kobakhidze switched positions.

For a while at least, the issue of Georgia’s EU candidate status dominated public discourse. “Almost everyone forgot the episode [with the attempted adoption of the ‘foreign agents’ law in 2023], as the candidate status overshadowed it. It was such a big success,” says Paata Zakareishvili. However, in spring 2024, Georgian Dream reintroduced the “foreign agents” bill to parliament.

Zakareishvili believes the bill’s return may be linked to internal political struggles within Georgian Dream: “My assumption is that Kobakhidze convinced Ivanishvili that last year’s failure [to pass the bill] was a disgrace. If we go into the elections like this, everyone will point out that we’re weak and gave in. In Georgian, Caucasian, and possibly even Russian mentality, defeat or a step back is seen as shameful.”

Following prolonged protests against the “Russian law,” on Apr. 29, a mass rally supporting the bill was held in Tbilisi, reportedly attracting 100,000 people, with Bidzina Ivanishvili making an in-person appearance and giving a speech. Just two weeks later, the “Russian law” was passed in its third reading. Following the adoption of the controversial bill, the process of Georgia’s accession to the European Union was halted.

Zakareishvili believes that reviving the “foreign agents” law was a mistake by Georgian Dream. The party sought to weaken civil society, assuming there would be neither mass protests nor a strong reaction from the West due to the recently granted EU candidate status. The party must have thought that, “If they gave us candidate status today, they won’t take it away tomorrow, right?” But once the bill was reintroduced, the authorities couldn’t back down, Zakareishvili explains.

“They’re pushing out the political opposition, and it seems to me that they want to discredit their opponents as much as possible and then win fairly,” says Giorgi Gobronidze, suggesting that passing the law may have been a calculated move ahead of the elections. According to polls, Georgian Dream could once again claim the top spot in the upcoming vote. A survey by Edison Research for Georgia’s pro-opposition Formula TV channel shows that the party won’t secure a parliamentary majority, with about 32% of respondents ready to vote for them. However, pro-government media cite polls suggesting the ruling party could win over 50%.

Zakareishvili explains that Georgian Dream has a loyal voter base, particularly among the country’s poorest residents: “We have 700,000 people who receive poverty benefits or other social assistance…They’ll be scared with things like, ‘We know who you’re voting for.’ It’s nonsense, the system is electronic — there’s no way to know who voted for whom. But the legend is working, and that’s very sad. Then there are 400,000 people waiting for social benefits. They think, ‘If I don’t vote, I might get rejected. Who knows? Better to vote for them.’”

According to Gobronidze, it’s not just the most vulnerable voters who may support Georgian Dream: “Why did so many large and medium-sized businesses support the ‘foreign agents’ law? Because they aren’t being harassed, unlike under previous governments, which often filled the budget with fines. We need to understand that a significant part of society doesn’t oppose the law — most people don’t care. What central Tbilisi and central Batumi think is one thing. But in the suburbs, [during the protests] life was different.”

Elections amid protests and war

Georgian Dream launched its election campaign in mid-July. The party’s leaders, including Bidzina Ivanishvili, stuck to the same rhetoric they used during the spring rallies supporting the “foreign agents” law, focusing heavily on the fear of war.

The honorary chairman again recalled his party’s victory over Saakashvili’s “bloody regime” and warned supporters that the victory was not final:

“It turned out they planted deep roots and became an agency of global influence — the force we now call the ‘global party of war.’ It is because of the ‘global party of war’ that we are still fighting this evil.”

According to Ivanishvili, the upcoming elections are part of the fight against this evil, which seeks to drag Georgia into another conflict: “For the collective ‘National Movement’ and its patrons, this is their last battle to create chaos and open a second front.”

In his speech, Ivanishvili predicted that the war in Ukraine would end within a year, and he argued that Georgia — with the help of Georgian Dream — must stand firm to avoid being drawn into it: “The parliamentary elections on Oct. 26 are a referendum. A referendum between war and peace, between slavery and dignity, between returning to the dark past and progress, between complete hopelessness and Georgia’s European future.”

But the constant rhetorical references to a European future haven’t stopped Georgian authorities from continuing to make pro-Russian statements. For instance, in August 2024, Georgian Dream declared that the 2008 war was a “provocation by Georgia” and a “crime of [Saakashvili’s] National Movement.” This statement was quickly picked up by Russian propagandists and officials. The party’s alignment with Russia, however, remains cautious. In the same statement, Georgian Dream maintained that blaming the National Movement doesn’t absolve Russia of responsibility. Meanwhile, rumors about restoring diplomatic relations — circulated by the marginal pro-Russian party “Solidarity for Peace” — were left uncommented on by Georgian Dream. A number of media outlets cited the party’s earlier position, which said that diplomatic relations with Moscow could only be restored after the de-occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia — two Russia-backed breakaway regions of Georgia that Moscow recognized as independent states after the end of the 2008 war.

“Today, we are citizens of a state whose leader is unacceptable on both the international and domestic stage due to his mistakes,” Ivanishvili said of Mikheil Saakashvili in Dec. 2011. In 2024, after the “foreign agents” law passed and Georgia’s EU accession ground to a halt, the same is being said about Ivanishvili himself.

Georgian Dream, initially seen as a billionaire’s charitable contribution to the fight for freedom, has become increasingly authoritarian over the years. Throughout this time, Ivanishvili’s party has exploited the image of Mikheil Saakashvili’s so-called “bloody regime” and stayed in power by sidelining political competition and manipulating the electoral system. As its third term draws to a close, this recipe for success may no longer work. But it’s still too early to predict that Ivanishvili will have to relinquish power.

The Georgian electoral system no longer favors the party in power, and Georgian Dream’s 32% approval rating leaves it vulnerable at a time when most Georgians still hope to see a European future for their country. And yet, Ivanishvili’s movement continues to exploit its citizens’ fears of a new war with Russia while the opposition, despite strong overall support, remains fragmented — unable to offer voters anything other than promises about reversing Georgian Dream’s “legacy.”

Cover photo: A woman holds both the Georgian national flag and the EU flag in front of riot police, who block a street in order to stop demonstrators during an opposition protest against the “Russian law” near the parliament building in central Tbilisi, Georgia, on May 14, 2024. Source: Zurab Tsertsvadze / AP