American Political Expert Terms Ivanishvili "Russia's Project"

• Friday, July 13, 16:00

Tbilisi. The Jamestown Foundation's Senior Fellow, famous American political expert Vladimir Socor is of the opinion that Georgian billionaire, a leader of the oppositional political coalition Georgian Dream Bidzina Ivanishvili is "Russia's project". He stated it to journalists on Wednesday, July 11, in Batumi (Adjara), where he participated in the international conference "Georgia's European Way:  EU and its European Neighbors".

"You have unimaginable rich billionaire, who has reached success in Russia and tries to get state power in Georgia. He wants to buy elections. In reality nobody knows how he earned the money. It is clear that he became rich during Vladimir Putin's previous presidency. But a person can not become rich so easy in Putin's Russia. In my opinion, it is clear that this case has been projected by Russia", Vladimir Socor said.

According to Socor, a political peak may be in Georgia after the parliamentary elections, scheduled for October.

"Ivanishvili and his team affirm that they will win at the elections. They say they will call the population to hold rallies if results of the elections are unacceptable. But it can result in violence and even in a civil war, and in the situation when military forces of Russia are concentrated on the border with Georgia", the political expert said, noting that he did not believe in Ivanishvili's victory.

Ivanishvili has not commented on the statement of the American political expert. On Tuesday, in the morning, the oppositional billionaire criticized a statement of another participant of the conference in Batumi, President of the European People's Party Wilfred Martens.

In Ivanishvili's opinion, Martens, who stated during the conference about inadmissibility of combining "great money and politics" was "in captivity of Saakashvili's lie".

"Wilfred Martens is in the captivity of Saakashvili's lie. We are working in this trend and I think, we will be able to familiarize him with the real situation. It is my great wish", Ivanishvili stressed.

Earlier, Ivanishvili not once commented on accusations that he worked for Moscow. He said that he had not been in Russia for nine years and having made a decision to go into Georgian politics, he sold assets in RF not to give occasion for speculations. Ivanishvili expressed bewilderment with use of a stigma "Kremlin's project" only with regard to him, while some representatives of the Georgian political establishment also had worked in Russia.