Guardian: Bidzina Ivanishvili: Georgia’s billionaire ‘puppet master’ betting the house on Moscow

The Guardian published a report on Georgia’s draconian new “foreign agents law,” which was pushed forward by the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili as a move to consolidate his personal regime of power. Excerpt below:

The bill has been described by Georgian protesters and western officials as a “Kremlin-inspired” tool to hound independent media and opposition voices in a country that has long teetered between the Russian and western spheres of influence but whose government now appears to be leaning towards Moscow.

The EU has made clear it would freeze Georgia’s membership application to the bloc if Tbilisi enacted the law.

Georgian Dream and Ivanishvili deny leaning towards Russia, and say the measures would increase transparency and defend Georgia’s sovereignty.

Russia is unpopular among ordinary Georgians, having supported armed separatists in the Moscow-backed breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 1990s and again in 2008.

Those who have worked with Ivanishvili say he has grown more authoritarian and ambitious over the years.

“He loves control, he runs the country as his dollhouse,” said Tina Khidasheli, who served as Georgian defence minister in a Georgian Dream-led government from 2015 to 2016.