Reports that Bidzina Ivanishvili may return to big politics become frequent in Georgia

Bidzina Ivanishvili may return to big politics as the party leader, Georgia’s ex-foreign minister Maya Panjikidze told reporters.

“I assume everything. I assume also that Mr. Bidzina Ivanishvili will return to politics. He said it once. If he feels it necessary, he will do it. I expect that Bidzina may return as the party leader rather than prime minister. All the rest are speculations. Everything is possible. We too may come to snap elections,” Panjikidze said, according to Georgia-Online.  

The ex-minister said the Free Democrats Party should be ready for such shifts, as quite “strange things” have been happening lately associated with devaluation of the national currency.

“All this may be also because lari saw a dramatic rise and then fell again. This appears to be a manageable process. Maybe, it was necessary to support the budget somehow, but there have been rather serious signs of crisis over the last 1.5 month. Everything is possible also because of this and because the crisis is not over yet,” Panjikidze said.  

Sources of The Rezonansi Newspaper say Bidzina Ivanishvili’s return to big politics is “not only desirable, but also necessary.” The paper explains such desire with the need to develop democracy in the country and do it officially rather than behind the scenes.

“In the light of the latest developments in the country, more and more people say that Ivanishvili left just formally. In fact, he manages everything behind the scenes, and the government acts according to Ivanishivili’s decisions,” the paper writes.

Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream opposition coalition won the parliamentary elections in October 2012. Ivanishvili took the post of the prime minister and governed up to the presidential elections of October 2013. Afterwards, Ivanishvili announced that he would leave the prime minister’s post and politics and left his post to his successor, Interior Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili. Rumors that the ex-prime minister acts behind the scenes began circulating after nine officials from Irakli Garibashvili’s team left their posts. It has been widely rumored that Ivanishvili governs informally and he is behind the staff reshuffles.