In a post-Soviet region often presided over by the thuggish, the charismatic or the extremely nationalistic, people are unused to the cautious and the pragmatic. So the recent election of Bidzina Ivanishvili makes for an interesting change in the South Caucasus republic of Georgia. Ivanishvili’s predecessor, the autocratic ‘democrat’ Mikheil Saakashvili, was the inheritor of the Rose Revolution against the old communist nomenklatura and proved a wildly pro-US president (no small task in the shadow of the Russian bear). He has now been sent packing by a zebra-collecting billionaire who also purports to be a psychoanalyst, a self-described anti-social loner and a practitioner of yoga.
Ivanishvili is an enigmatic figure. The richest man in Georgia, he made his money in Russia and has spent it on various popular philanthropic causes. He is reported to be open to advice and willing to admit mistakes. He promises to provide balance to Georgian international positioning by maintaining good relations with the West while overcoming Saakashvili’s animosity towards Russia, which resulted in an unwinnable war with the Kremlin. Ivanishvili once bankrolled Saakashvili, but reportedly soured on the latter’s ruthless suppression of his opponents and limitations of freedoms. The challenges Ivanishvili now faces – of straddling great power politics while maintaining an open and democratic Georgia – are immense. His election, however, marks a watershed in the highly volatile Caucasus, where peaceful transitions of power remain the exception.
