Tycoon, ex-politician and “Citizen”

Former Georgian Prime Minister and billionaire businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili’s latest endeavor in the public sector sounds grand in the long-term but modest in the short term.

‘Control the Government’

Billionaire Ivanishvili, who stepped down four month ago after a year as the head of the former government, said on February 4, he was launching a ‘think-tank’ (non-governmental organization) called Citizen, aimed at helping citizens "to hire and control the Government.”

"I wished I were a citizen of a free society. This was the reason I entered politics for a short time and then quit. To be a free citizen is the biggest pleasure on Earth and at the same time it is the heaviest load. This is why I have founded this organisation called Citizen,"|/ Ivanishvili told journalists at a press conference explaining his appearance in this role.

"We must learn to hire and control the Government. Citizen has been founded to help people control their Government."

To clarify Citizen’s motto, Ivanishvili said: "Citizen means the state oriented individual with the liability not only to love and take care with whom he or she lives but to the citizens he or she does not know and even does not like.”

To make this idea even stronger, Ivanishvili three times citied the famous Georgian writer, poet, and 19th century journalist Ilia Chavchavadze’s dictum that: "It is not enough be a scientist, simultaneously you have to be a good man [and a] good man means to take care of the country you live in”.

Some political analysts and Ivanishvili’s political opponents expect the ex-PM to remain the power behind the Georgian government that he ‘created’. They believe Ivanishvili is the unflagging authority for the Government and they will obey his criticism.

However asked at a lengthy press conference how he planned to convey his criticism to the Government when he deemed it necessary, Ivanishvili responded that he can do it publicly through the media and privately through by directly contacting "some” Government members.

Launching with media and economy

At present, with no logo, office and specific projects of the organization but with the name and charter, Ivanishvili believed Citizen would launch work in two main directions - media and economy.

The ex-PM, who at age 57 is estimated to have a fortune of $5.3 billion USD by Forbes magazine, pledged to put "one, two, or three million GEL annually into the organisation to fund the training of journalists and political analysts.

"Citizen will help media organisations and analysts to increase its professionalism. Citizen will funding trainings for journalists and will also commission monitoring of media outlets to keep track of quality of reporting,” he said.

Asked when the first projects would start, Ivanishvili citied the seven-person team, involving the new NGO’s Executive Director Giorgi Sabanadze with whom he jointly held the press conference, said the group was working.

The Citizen's Executive Director Giorgi Sabanadze at the press fonferance on February 4, 2014. Photo by EPN. 

"We are on the way to choosing partners to conduct the analytical monitoring of media outlets,” Sabanadze said after the press conference.

Not highlighting the volume of the fund spent on developing the economy, Ivanishvili said he actively worked with the Georgian Co-Investment Fund – a newly established 6 billion USD private equity fund backed by Ivanishvili, who invested the initial $1 billion, which created controversy around its investments in the Georgian economy.

In broad terms, the charter of the organization read that Citizen would support democratic, economic, social and educational development in the country. It would also ensure independent and responsible media, defend human rights and support the rule of law.

Furthermore, it indicated that the organisation would elaborate a peaceful concept of regeneration of the country’s territorial integrity.

"Citizen will not be able to cover all the areas of interest simultaneously. We have written many topics in the charter but we do not plan to execute all of them in a short term period,”|/ Ivanishvili noted.

The billionaire was also considering providing funding to launch several affiliated NGO’s which will unite experts from various fields to work in collaboration with Citizen.

Furthermore, Ivanishvili’s charitable foundation Cartu will allocate 50,000 GEL to each partner NGO.

Ivanishvili said that one such NGO had already been launched by Archil Kbilashvili, who served as the Chief Prosecutor when Ivanishvili was the Prime Minister.

"Kbilashvili’s NGO will work in the legal field and I plan to work with him as I believe that the organisation will be oriented to the European integration,” Ivanishvili said.

Besides this, Citizen will develop partnerships with state entities, business leaders, educational centers and religious organisations.

At the end of the conference Ivanishvlili revealed the creation of the organization’s name was dedicated to Parliament Speaker Davit Usupashvili.