The oligarch behind Georgia's pivot to Russia

Despite mass pro-EU rallies and pressure from the West, Georgia's ruling Georgian Dream party has shown no sign of repealing the "foreign influence" bill.

Critics of the bill, who have dubbed it the "Russian law," have said the Georgian government intends to implement similar tactics to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on opposition, civil society and independent media.

If signed into law, it would require nongovernmental organizations and individuals receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as entities "bearing the interests of a foreign power."

The government has claimed the bill is aimed at transparency. But opponents have said its goal is to steer the country away from Europe and closer to Russia.

Critics claim Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the ruling party and now considered its informal leader, is the mastermind behind the bill. 

In his capacity as honorary chairman of the Georgian Dream party, he has the informal power to appoint prime ministers, approve judges in courts and rubber-stamp laws in parliament.

How did Ivanishvili rise to power?

"He leads a sterile and ascetic lifestyle," Gia Khukhashvili, a former adviser and friend of Ivanishvili's, told DW. "He is a hermit."

Ivanishvili was born in 1956 in the village of Chorvila in western Georgia. He attended university in the capital, Tbilisi, before going to Moscow to pursue a doctorate in economics. It was from the ruins of the Soviet Union that he paved his way to becoming a billionaire.

During the privatization phase that followed the collapse of communism, Ivanishvili became a banking and metal tycoon. He also acquired 1% of shares in Russia's state-owned gas giant Gazprom, which he later claimed to have sold before entering Georgian politics.

Ivanishvili left Russia in 2002, first moving to France before returning to Georgia in 2003. There is speculation that he left because he feared the crackdown on oligarchs launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"When he saw [Putin] on TV marching down the Kremlin aisle, he understood that Putin wouldn't let him manage his business peacefully," said Khukhashvili.

He added that Ivanishvili had once told him "very proudly that it was his idea to ask the Russian secret service to protect the oligarchs. Other than that, we did not talk about his life in Russia, and he did not mention any friends there."

After returning to Georgia, Ivanishvili continued his business activity and led a low-profile life away from the public eye. 

He returned to the spotlight when he founded Georgian Dream party and ran for the 2012 parliamentary election. He beat his rival, Mikheil Saakashvili, but his tenure as prime minister only lasted a year before he announced his retirement from politics.

However, observers have said he left only to continue pulling the strings in the background.

Ivanishvili behind Georgia's pro-Western facade

Opinion polls suggest more than 80% of Georgians support the country's further integration with the European Union. Anti-Kremlin sentiments run high in Georgia, especially since Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. 

Since coming to power in 2012, the Georgian Dream government has always been officially committed to joining the EU and NATO. The opposition, however, have accused it of hiding a pro-Russian stance.

Ivanishvili was able to attract allies who believed in a pro-Western course for Georgia and thought he had broken his links with Russia.

"He said he sold his assets in Russia and was free of the Russian grip," former Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili told DW. "We were always talking about Euro-Atlantic integration. At some point, I stopped believing in it. I saw that we were moving elsewhere. But the voters believed that they were still going to Europe."

After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Georgian Dream officials started accusing Western officials of wanting to drag Georgia into the Ukraine war as "a second front."

In April, in a rare speech, Ivanishvili accused what he refers to as a Western-backed "global war party" of interfering in Georgian affairs and causing conflict with its neighbor Russia.

"Despite the promise made at the Bucharest Summit in 2008, Georgia and Ukraine were not allowed to join NATO and were left outside. All such decisions are made by the 'global war party,' which has a decisive influence on NATO and the European Union and only sees Georgia and Ukraine as cannon fodder," he said in his speech.

Margvelashvili believes the "foreign influence" bill, which targets Western-funded civil society and pro-EU movements in Georgia, plays right into Putin's hands. 

"Russia will be able to say, 'Look at Georgia; they've been struggling to break away from us, and they still come back to Russia. No matter what you do today, you will come back to Russia,'" Margvelashvili said. "This will also echo with Ukrainians."

Sanctions, conspiracy theories and disputes with Credit Suisse

Since parliament passed the "foreign influence" bill, which critics say would put Georgia's Western trajectory at risk, the European Parliament has adopted a resolution calling for sanctions against Ivanishvili. The US, traditionally one of Georgia's main strategic partners,has introduced a visa ban for Georgian Dream officials for "undermining democracy" in the country.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze recently claimed that "informal sanctions" against Ivanishvili were already in place as a result of Ivanishvili's ongoing legal war with the Swiss bank Credit Suisse over freezing his assets believed to total $2 billion (€1.85 billion).

"When you don't believe in democracy, you don't believe in the independence of institutions and the checks-and-balances system, [then] conspiracy theory is the easy way," explained former Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, speaking with DW.

Ivanishvili's strategy to stay in power

Some of Ivanishvili’s critics believe the current illiberal turn is part of his political survival strategy. If the pro-Western opposition wins parliamentary elections in October, Ivanishvili's standing and wealth could be at risk.

"He is sacrificing his country's democracy and EU integration for his wealth, and he will put all his resources into maintaining power. Because only staying in power can guarantee his well-being," said Gakharia.

He added that for Ivanishvili, the "foreign influence" bill was also a tool to suppress election watchdogs in order to rig the parliamentary elections.

"The problem now is how to conduct fair elections. Ivanishvili is afraid of two things: Not getting legitimacy from Georgians if they do not recognize the elections, and international legitimacy. If these two overlap in October, he is done," said Gakharia.

Edited by: Rob Mudge