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The New Titan of Tbilisi
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/02/the_new_titan_of_tbilisi
Eccentric billionaire (and exotic-pet enthusiast) Bidzina Ivanishvili just won
a shock election in Georgia. But is he too crazy to actually govern?
BY SHAUN WALKER | OCTOBER 2, 2012
TBILISI, Georgia - Beyond his zebra-rearing, art-collecting eccentricities,
we don't know all that much about Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose Georgian Dream
coalition won a shock victory in Monday's parliamentary elections here. But
after his victory news conference, we do know one thing for sure: He's no
orator.
In a long meeting with the media in a sweaty room at Georgian Dream
headquarters on Tuesday, Oct. 2, Ivanishvili rambled, repeated himself,
appeared to make up policy on the spot, and accused a reporter from a major
international news agency of being a stooge for his opponent,
President Mikheil Saakashvili. He was also oblivious of the fact that
Georgian law requires Saakashvili, as president, to approve the prime
minister's nomination, at least until the Georgian Constitution changes
next year. Initially, he argued forcefully with journalists that this was
incorrect, before later conceding the point.
It was an unnerving performance that might give people some cause to wonder
just who the man is who has benefited from the wave of popular fury against
Saakashvili's reforming but authoritarian rule, and what kind of government
he might go on to lead.
Much of the vitriolic election campaign that took place here over the past
few months focused on the flaws or benefits of Saakashvili, the hero of the
2003 Rose Revolution. His eccentric opponent was something of a side
attraction. Now that Ivanishvili's coalition is going to dominate
Parliament, however, the spotlight falls on the oligarch, who lived in
complete hermitdom prior to his entry into politics.
Until last year, few people even knew what he looked like. He had given
just one interview, to the Russian newspaper *Vedomosti*, back in 2005, and he
shunned all publicity and public events. He moved as stealthily as a cat
whenever he left the safety of his contemporary castle of glass on a
hill overlooking Tbilisi, disbursing his philanthropic donations to Georgian
artists and intellectuals quietly and anonymously.
After he announced in October 2011 that he was the man to challenge
Saakashvili, he had to make a quick adjustment to the world of media
appearances and interviews. A gift to the profile writer, Ivanishvili
often seems like he has wandered straight off the pages of a Gary
Shteyngart novel. His political rallies have featured performances by
his albino son, who is a rapper. When I interviewed him two months ago,
at his Black Sea estate, he arrived driving a red golf buggy, playing
"My Way" on the stereo and offering an impromptu tour of his exotic-pet
collection before we sat down to chat. There were flamingos, parrots,
peacocks, and two zebras. Another reporter who visited one of his other
residences discovered a kangaroo and several penguins (it being January,
they were swimming around his pond and not being refrigerated, as they
are during summer).
"The main problem is that he does not know what love is," Ivanishvili
told me when I asked him what he disliked about Saakash vili. In an
interview with the Russian edition of *GQ*, he elaborated: "I love
people, unlike Saakashv ili, and they feel it," he said. "Saakashvili
loves only sex and food."
In the time we spent talking, he came across as a surprisingly affable,
if rather bizarre character. He was comfortable talking about how Zelda,
his zebra mare, is pregnant, or how there are eight breeds of peacock
(he has them all). He was even comfortable talking about his rise from a
Georgian villager to a Russian billionaire and how he negotiated the
dangers of the 1990s Moscow business climate. He was less cogent,
however, on specific policies, concentrating instead on ad hominem
attacks on his opponent. (Saakashvili's people, for their part, returned
the compliment, describing him as a "weirdo" and a Kremlin stooge.) He
also appeared confused by the transition from dealing with business
subordinates to dealing with inquisitive journalists. At the end of our
interview he waved a hand and said, "You know which bits to use and
which bits not to use, right? I'm sure you understand what you should
write and what you shouldn't."
Now that the interviews are taking place in front of dozens of television
cameras, his confusion that a journalist's purpose actually might be to ask
him difficult questions rather than make him look good is more easily visible.
At his Tuesday news conference, responding to a perfectly reasonable
question from a Bloomberg reporter about whether the so-called "thieves-in-law"
may come back to Georgia now that he is in power, Ivanishvili lost his
cool. "Who asked you to ask that question? Saakashvili? Bokeria?" he
snapped, referring to the president and one of his key advisors, Giga Bokeria.
"It is not a valid question. I'm not answering it."
Despite the plethora of advisors who surround him, he also seems to be
poorly briefed and is already making statements inconsistent with the
few interviews he has given. When asked on Tuesday how much of his
fortune he had spent on his campaign, he said: "About $2 million. I'm
not sure, exactly. Between $1 million and $3 million." In a July
interview he said he had already spent up to $10 million.
His sense of political timing also leaves something to be desired. In
his rambling introduction he made the same point four times and spoke at
length about how he would prosecute a single judge who had been
responsible for what he called unlawful verdicts against the
opposition. He stated that if Saakashvili could work with the
opposition, then a cooperative relationship could be achieved. Nearly
two hours into the news conference, however, Ivanishvili suddenly
dropped a bombshell, demanding that Saakashvili resign, instead of
seeing out the final year of his presidency. "The only right thing for
him to do now is to take his pen and resign," Ivanishvili said. "This
would be good for himself and for his future." Ivanishvili appeared to
have had the thought on the spot, and the statement immediately caused
alarm among the international community, especially after Saakashvili's
surprisingly magnanimous concession speech. "This call is totally
unacceptable and is a direct attack against democracy and the rule of
law," said a statement from Wilfried Martens, president of the European
People's Party, which is affiliated with Saakashvili's United National
Movement. It was only on the thorny issue of relations with Russia that
Ivanishvili sounded assured, insisting that he would seek to bolster
trade and cultural ties with Georgia's overbearing northern neighbor,
but at the same time vowing not to err at all from Saakashvili's course
of NATO and EU integration.
The general consensus at the moment is that this election campaign,
despite being spiteful and vitriolic, has ended up as a tremendous
advertisement for Georgian democracy. There are not many countries in
this region where a powerful sitting president could be so undermined at
the ballot box. But Georgian politics, after all, has a long history of
enthusiastic celebration of a messiah figure before a swift process of
disillusionment kicks in. Recently, we have been inundated with
headlines and op-eds referencing pruned or wilted roses (the most
recent: "Petals Drop Off the Rose Revolution").
The test for Ivanishvili will be keeping his newly victorious coalition --
which ranges from liberals to ultranationalists -- together, now that they
are no longer fighting a common enemy. How soon before we see the first
"Georgian Dream Turns to Nightmare" headline? Not long, unless Ivanishv
ili develops a new set of political skills quickly.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/02/the_new_titan_of_tbilisi?page=full
From: A. Papazian
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/02/the_new_titan_of_tbilisi
Eccentric billionaire (and exotic-pet enthusiast) Bidzina Ivanishvili just won
a shock election in Georgia. But is he too crazy to actually govern?
BY SHAUN WALKER | OCTOBER 2, 2012
TBILISI, Georgia - Beyond his zebra-rearing, art-collecting eccentricities,
we don't know all that much about Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose Georgian Dream
coalition won a shock victory in Monday's parliamentary elections here. But
after his victory news conference, we do know one thing for sure: He's no
orator.
In a long meeting with the media in a sweaty room at Georgian Dream
headquarters on Tuesday, Oct. 2, Ivanishvili rambled, repeated himself,
appeared to make up policy on the spot, and accused a reporter from a major
international news agency of being a stooge for his opponent,
President Mikheil Saakashvili. He was also oblivious of the fact that
Georgian law requires Saakashvili, as president, to approve the prime
minister's nomination, at least until the Georgian Constitution changes
next year. Initially, he argued forcefully with journalists that this was
incorrect, before later conceding the point.
It was an unnerving performance that might give people some cause to wonder
just who the man is who has benefited from the wave of popular fury against
Saakashvili's reforming but authoritarian rule, and what kind of government
he might go on to lead.
Much of the vitriolic election campaign that took place here over the past
few months focused on the flaws or benefits of Saakashvili, the hero of the
2003 Rose Revolution. His eccentric opponent was something of a side
attraction. Now that Ivanishvili's coalition is going to dominate
Parliament, however, the spotlight falls on the oligarch, who lived in
complete hermitdom prior to his entry into politics.
Until last year, few people even knew what he looked like. He had given
just one interview, to the Russian newspaper *Vedomosti*, back in 2005, and he
shunned all publicity and public events. He moved as stealthily as a cat
whenever he left the safety of his contemporary castle of glass on a
hill overlooking Tbilisi, disbursing his philanthropic donations to Georgian
artists and intellectuals quietly and anonymously.
After he announced in October 2011 that he was the man to challenge
Saakashvili, he had to make a quick adjustment to the world of media
appearances and interviews. A gift to the profile writer, Ivanishvili
often seems like he has wandered straight off the pages of a Gary
Shteyngart novel. His political rallies have featured performances by
his albino son, who is a rapper. When I interviewed him two months ago,
at his Black Sea estate, he arrived driving a red golf buggy, playing
"My Way" on the stereo and offering an impromptu tour of his exotic-pet
collection before we sat down to chat. There were flamingos, parrots,
peacocks, and two zebras. Another reporter who visited one of his other
residences discovered a kangaroo and several penguins (it being January,
they were swimming around his pond and not being refrigerated, as they
are during summer).
"The main problem is that he does not know what love is," Ivanishvili
told me when I asked him what he disliked about Saakash vili. In an
interview with the Russian edition of *GQ*, he elaborated: "I love
people, unlike Saakashv ili, and they feel it," he said. "Saakashvili
loves only sex and food."
In the time we spent talking, he came across as a surprisingly affable,
if rather bizarre character. He was comfortable talking about how Zelda,
his zebra mare, is pregnant, or how there are eight breeds of peacock
(he has them all). He was even comfortable talking about his rise from a
Georgian villager to a Russian billionaire and how he negotiated the
dangers of the 1990s Moscow business climate. He was less cogent,
however, on specific policies, concentrating instead on ad hominem
attacks on his opponent. (Saakashvili's people, for their part, returned
the compliment, describing him as a "weirdo" and a Kremlin stooge.) He
also appeared confused by the transition from dealing with business
subordinates to dealing with inquisitive journalists. At the end of our
interview he waved a hand and said, "You know which bits to use and
which bits not to use, right? I'm sure you understand what you should
write and what you shouldn't."
Now that the interviews are taking place in front of dozens of television
cameras, his confusion that a journalist's purpose actually might be to ask
him difficult questions rather than make him look good is more easily visible.
At his Tuesday news conference, responding to a perfectly reasonable
question from a Bloomberg reporter about whether the so-called "thieves-in-law"
may come back to Georgia now that he is in power, Ivanishvili lost his
cool. "Who asked you to ask that question? Saakashvili? Bokeria?" he
snapped, referring to the president and one of his key advisors, Giga Bokeria.
"It is not a valid question. I'm not answering it."
Despite the plethora of advisors who surround him, he also seems to be
poorly briefed and is already making statements inconsistent with the
few interviews he has given. When asked on Tuesday how much of his
fortune he had spent on his campaign, he said: "About $2 million. I'm
not sure, exactly. Between $1 million and $3 million." In a July
interview he said he had already spent up to $10 million.
His sense of political timing also leaves something to be desired. In
his rambling introduction he made the same point four times and spoke at
length about how he would prosecute a single judge who had been
responsible for what he called unlawful verdicts against the
opposition. He stated that if Saakashvili could work with the
opposition, then a cooperative relationship could be achieved. Nearly
two hours into the news conference, however, Ivanishvili suddenly
dropped a bombshell, demanding that Saakashvili resign, instead of
seeing out the final year of his presidency. "The only right thing for
him to do now is to take his pen and resign," Ivanishvili said. "This
would be good for himself and for his future." Ivanishvili appeared to
have had the thought on the spot, and the statement immediately caused
alarm among the international community, especially after Saakashvili's
surprisingly magnanimous concession speech. "This call is totally
unacceptable and is a direct attack against democracy and the rule of
law," said a statement from Wilfried Martens, president of the European
People's Party, which is affiliated with Saakashvili's United National
Movement. It was only on the thorny issue of relations with Russia that
Ivanishvili sounded assured, insisting that he would seek to bolster
trade and cultural ties with Georgia's overbearing northern neighbor,
but at the same time vowing not to err at all from Saakashvili's course
of NATO and EU integration.
The general consensus at the moment is that this election campaign,
despite being spiteful and vitriolic, has ended up as a tremendous
advertisement for Georgian democracy. There are not many countries in
this region where a powerful sitting president could be so undermined at
the ballot box. But Georgian politics, after all, has a long history of
enthusiastic celebration of a messiah figure before a swift process of
disillusionment kicks in. Recently, we have been inundated with
headlines and op-eds referencing pruned or wilted roses (the most
recent: "Petals Drop Off the Rose Revolution").
The test for Ivanishvili will be keeping his newly victorious coalition --
which ranges from liberals to ultranationalists -- together, now that they
are no longer fighting a common enemy. How soon before we see the first
"Georgian Dream Turns to Nightmare" headline? Not long, unless Ivanishv
ili develops a new set of political skills quickly.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/02/the_new_titan_of_tbilisi?page=full
From: A. Papazian