Ruling party head lauds former PM’s merits in response to Politico article

Irakli Kobakhidze, the Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Tuesday claimed Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former Prime Minister and the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, had replaced a “bloody”, “anti-Western”, “anti-European regime” in Georgia led by the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili and the United National Movement party. 

Kobakhidze’s comments followed an article published by Politico on Tuesday, which claimed Ivanishvili was “widely known to be pulling the strings of the ruling Georgian Dream party he founded”. 

In his response, the party official said Ivanishvili had donated $3 billion in charity “for the benefit of the country and its citizens”, before entering politics in 2011 and replacing the “bloody regime” of UNM in elections a year later.

You remember that until 2012, a bloody regime operated in the country and killed a lot of people. Business racketeering, torture of people, inhumane treatment, transfer of territories to Russia, seizing of TV stations - that is what the previous Government did”, Kobakhidze said. 

He also said Ivanishvili had brought into power a team under which Georgia first signed the Association Agreement with the EU in 2014, followed by a free trade agreement with the bloc, visa-free travel for the Schengen Area and was now about to be granted the EU membership candidate status.

Someone will pay money in some newspaper and Bidzina Ivanishvili will be mentioned negatively, [but] it has no significance”, the party head added.

Kobakhidze said Ivanishvili’s “overthrowing” of the UNM Government had been followed by the establishment of a Government “compatible with Western standards and values”, and called the Politico article “shameful”. 

Ivanishvili left the party and politics in 2021 by saying his "mission" had been "accomplished".