Political confrontation in Georgia is escalating ahead of parliamentary elections in October. The opposition is looking to Europe, while the ruling elite is seeking control of the country (and a new balance between Russia and the EU, on the Hungarian model). In the background, Ivanišvili’s role is at the crossroads of public and private interests.
Moscow () – The political confrontation in Georgia, on the eve of the parliamentary elections in October, is taking on increasingly radical dimensions, leading the country towards a transformation whose dimensions and direction are difficult to predict. The main opposition group, the National Movement, founded by former President Mikhail Saakašvili, who has been in prison for more than three years, wants to bring Georgia into Europe, while the ruling party Georgian Dream, in the words of its founder and honorary president Bidzina Ivanišvili, wants to obtain a “constitutional majority” that will allow it to outlaw its opponents, accused of wanting to subvert the state order, thus maintaining a “democratic one-party” regime, as Prime Minister Iraklij Kobakhidze has also declared.
Ivanišvili has controlled Georgian politics for more than a decade, having ousted his opponent Saakašvili for opposing Russia in the conflict over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. With his electoral victory, he aims to include the principle of territorial integrity in the new constitution, adjusting it to the autonomy of the pro-Russian republics, and thus return Georgia to a state compliant with the Kremlin. The direction towards European integration would also be maintained, but in an interpretation opposite to that of Ukraine and more similar to that of Hungary, as a form of “mediation” between Russia and Europe.
In the midst of the fierce geopolitical debate, the concerns of the great bourgeois oligarch seem to be more about a more private and “symbolic” dimension, that of his great love for nature and, in particular, for trees. Indeed, it is great news that eight baobabs that Ivanišvili had planted in his fabulous dendrological park of Šekhveteli, on the shores of the Black Sea, after having transported them with great difficulty from Kenya, have withered. The 68-year-old multimillionaire and former prime minister has often said that he “prefers the profession of gardener to that of politician” and, from behind the leaves of trees and bushes, he moves the pawns on the national political chessboard.
The park is home to about 60 species of birds and other animals from several continents, and on its 60 hectares a wide bamboo walk leads to the central lake and, above all, to several hundred giant trees, collected throughout Georgia and abroad: not only oaks, cypresses, cedars and magnolias, but also sequoias and ginkgos. Now even this paradise has become the subject of heated debate, because for his “whim” Ivanišvili has built roads and railways to the park, rebuilt electricity and energy networks with the help of all law enforcement agencies and administrations, which has led to accusations of using state funds for private purposes.
One of the largest trees was brought to Šekhveteli on the ship, as a striking symbol of oligarchic power, and even inspired a documentary by director Salome Džaši, Taming the Garden, released in Germany in 2021 and in competition at the Berlinale. And now the death of the baobabs is attributed by Ivanišvili precisely to the National Opposition Movement, together with the numerous media outlets critical of the park, which would have organized an “ideological war front on the African continent”, haranguing Kenyan administrations up to the president with complaints and demands, to prove the false origin of the baobabs with “contrived analyses” attributing them to Madagascar. Precious time was lost in bureaucracy, which prevented proper care of the trees, which ended up withering.
When the truth came out, the baobabs were finally sent from Kenya, but it was too late. However, the oligarch-gardener was accused in the international press of “biopiracy” and of having bribed the Kenyans to be able to use their sacred forests, with which he intends to transform the whole of Georgia into a park of his own, with roots extending from Russia to Africa, making the Caucasus the new centre of the world.
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