“No criteria” points to Ivanishvili’s being oligarch – ruling party

Irakli Kobakhidze, a head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, has stated that there are “no criteria” which could point to the founder of the party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, being an oligarch, on the backdrop of the opposition’s years of allegations of his running the country from the backstage and the GD’s recently proposed de-oligarchization bill, as part of the European Union’s 12-point conditions for the country’s membership candidate status.  

“An oligarch is a person who has financial resources, more than anything, and who has influence on politics. These are two essential criteria. We can talk about other criteria, but these are the two main criteria. If we follow these criteria, it turns out that Bidzina Ivanishvili, neither according to Ukrainian and objective criteria, is not an oligarch”, Kobakhidze said.  

He stressed that “Ivanishvili has been in service of Georgia during his whole life”. 

The opposition is demanding the de-oligarchization bill, which is one of 12 conditions for Georgia’s EU candidacy, to include Ivanishvili. However, the GD says that the bill will not include names at all, and instead will provide criteria to determine whether someone is an oligarch.