TBILISI (Reuters) – Former Georgian prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire widely held to wield huge political influence, announced on Saturday that he will be returning to the forefront of politics after a two-year absence, just before the parliamentary elections in 2024.
In a speech posted online by the ruling party, Georgian Dream, Ivanishvili stated that he is coming back due to the “complicated” geopolitical situation and the opposition’s failure to hold the government accountable.
Despite resigning as prime minister in 2013, Ivanishvili is widely believed to still have significant sway in the government.
During his speech, he indicated that he is in regular contact with Georgia’s leadership and implied that he would play an active role in the election campaign as the honorary chair of Georgian Dream.
The opposition has long accused Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, of having allegiances to Moscow, Georgia’s former ruler. Russia remains unpopular among Georgians, having supported armed separatists in the Moscow-backed breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 1990s and 2008.
Both Georgian Dream and Ivanishvili deny leaning towards Russia, and instead express their support for joining the European Union and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance.
The Georgian Dream government recently achieved its long-standing goal of EU candidacy, although Brussels has reiterated its demand for “de-oligarchisation” of Georgian politics, a term believed to refer to Ivanishvili.
The government has also faced allegations of authority tendencies in recent years. In March, it attempted to pass a bill penalizing so-called “foreign agents,” which critics said resembled a law used by the Kremlin to suppress dissent in Russia.
(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
