In the winding streets of ancient Tbilisi, one is ever under his watchful gaze. From a hilltop glass mansion, likened by critics to a Bond villain’s lair, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s wealthiest and most influential figure, has guided the country’s shift away from the west over more than a decade.
With his party’s latest victory in the pivotal parliamentary elections on Saturday, that trajectory appears set to continue for years to come, sparking warnings from opponents that Ivanishvili plans to dismantle Georgia’s fragile three-decade experiment with democracy while blocking any viable path to EU integration.
Since his short tenure as prime minister from 2012 to 2013, the secretive oligarch, whose wealth is estimated to be $7.5bn in a country whose GDP is $30bn, has largely exerted his influence from behind the scenes and is widely described by many Georgians as the country’s “puppet master”.
He’s a Kremlin asset that should leave Georgia and never come back.