He collects rare animals, buys priceless art and professes to be a psychoanalyst. Bidzina Ivanishvili,
a onetime barefoot village boy turned eccentric billionaire
philanthropist, is poised to become the new leader of Georgia, a
strategic South Caucasus country that lives in the shadows of giant
neighbor Russia.
President Mikhail Saakashvili, a
staunch ally of the West, on Tuesday acknowledged defeat in
parliamentary elections and called on Ivanishvili to form the new
government. That puts the tycoon on track to be prime minister, which
will be Georgia's most powerful job under legislative changes next year.
After making his fortune in
tumultuous post-Soviet Russia, Ivanishvili, 56, returned to Georgia
shortly before the peaceful 2003 Rose Revolution catapulted Saakashvili
to power. For years he quietly financed Saakashvili's reforms, buying
new shoes for Georgian soldiers, equipping the police force with cars
and helping to raise the salaries of lawmakers and ministry bureaucrats
so that they wouldn't take bribes.
[Related: Georgian president concedes his party lost]
But his friendship with
Saakashivli soured after the U.S.-educated president cracked down on
dissent, imposed controls over the media and led his nation into a
disastrous 2008 war with Russia.
Ivanishvili says he was "fooled"
by Saakashvili and shocked Tbilisi last year by announcing he would
challenge his former ally's 8-year grip on power. The president
responded by casting Ivanishvili as a Russian stooge and referring to
his Georgian Dream coalition as the "forces of darkness."
The billionaire laughs off the
charges, noting his past bankrolling a president who has thrived on
being the Kremlin's arch-enemy.
"I was the only free person who
can do something with my brains, my money and my name," Ivanishvili told
the AP in an interview this summer at his Black Sea residence.
Ivanishvili promises to continue
moving Georgia toward membership in the European Union and NATO. At the
same time, he promises to fix economic ties with Russia, getting Moscow
to lift its ban on Georgian wine and mineral water.
Ivanishvili admits that he faces a tough challenge mending relations with Russia while moving closer to the West.
"Yes, it's hard. Yes, perhaps we will have to spend a lot of time on
this," Ivanishvili told the AP. "We need both. We need to strive for
that."
Ivanishvili, short, lean and
lively, was the youngest of five children, the son of a miner and a
stay-at-home mother. "The whole village was poor, not just me,"
Ivanishvili told the AP. He could not afford shoes and dreamt of a
bicycle, which he never got — "but I was an absolutely happy person."
He learned engineering at a
university in Tbilisi by night and worked at a steel mill by day. He
then moved to Moscow to work on a Ph.D. in labor economy.
Together with a friend,
Ivanishvili seized on Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika campaign. He first
started importing personal computers from the West and then set up a
bank, which became a leading Russian financial institution. Its first
office was in a kindergarten full of miniature toddler toilets. He then
started buying into mining and metals across Russia and then re-selling
those shares at large profits. Along the way, he picked up a Russian
passport. He left Moscow in the late 1990s to spend several years in
France — and became a citizen of that country, too.
Before running for office,
Ivanishvili relinquished his Russian citizenship and sold off all of his
Russian assets. But, in one of the dramas of the campaign, Saakashvili
stripped Ivanishvili of his Georgian citizenship on the grounds he was
still French — and Georgia doesn't allow dual nationality. Parliament
swiftly passed a law allowing Ivanishvili to run as an EU citizen.
Ivanishvili portrays himself as a
quiet family man, who detests parties — lamenting the need to "put on a
mask" — and says his greatest pleasure is taking a stroll with his
wife, Ekaterine, whom he calls his best friend. He also has extravagant
hobbies, like collecting exotic animals such zebras, flamingoes and
kangaroos, amassing a unique art collection worth $1 billion and
building futuristic glass-and-steel palaces across the country.
Upon returning to Georgia in
2003, he rebuilt his native hilltop village of Chorvilla into a personal
fiefdom, giving fellow villagers generous monthly allowances and
equipping each household with a stove. He has also built schools,
hospitals and churches around the country and — in a monarchic move —
anonymously paid stipends to the Tbilisi actors he liked.
For his quiet philanthropy and reclusive lifestyle, Saakashvili dubbed him "
The Count of Monte Cristo" — after the mysterious hero of the 19th century French novel by Alexandre Dumas.
While most impoverished Georgians were happy for his help, some
critics said that the giveaways smack of feudalism. They say that
investing in social programs and giving people jobs was more effective
than simply doling out money and gifts.
He promises quick reforms to boost investment and strengthen democratic institutions.
But while Ivanishvili swears he is a democrat, some of his remarks may already suggest an autocratic streak.
"Getting rid of elite corruption cannot be simpler, if the first person in the country wants it."
Pagination