Bidzina Ivanishvili
Date of Birth: 18.02.1956
Place of Birth. Education. Born in the Georgian village of Chorvila. In 1980, he graduated from the Faculty of Engineering Economics at Tbilisi State University and two years later entered the postgraduate program at the Moscow Institute of Labor. In Moscow, Ivanishvili had to change his Georgian name. 'They called me everything - sometimes Buzinoy, sometimes Benzinnaya,' recalls the businessman. 'Once the head of the postgraduate program spat and said that she would just call me Boris.' Four years later, in 1986, he defended his dissertation and returned to Tbilisi, where a branch of the Institute of Labor had just been opened. The work was boring. Ivanishvili traded in computers and soon moved back to Moscow, where the opportunities to get rich were growing every day.
Career. Ivanishvili is known for earning his fortune in Russia. In the 1990s, the entrepreneur was among those who acquired former state enterprises during a massive privatization wave of the Soviet legacy for ridiculous sums.
Ivanishvili's fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at $6.4 billion. By comparison, the assets of the richest Ukrainian, Rinat Akhmetov, are estimated at $16 billion, followed by Viktor Pinchuk with $4.2 billion and Igor Kolomoisky with $3 billion. The entrepreneur owns assets in banking, construction, real estate, the agro-industrial complex, the hotel industry, and the art market.
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According to some observers, all these assets not only underscore Ivanishvili's wealth but also demonstrate his closeness to the Russian government. Experts point out that in Russia, no one can access the pearls of the economy and the energy sector without the approval of the Kremlin.
After the collapse of the USSR, Ivanishvili received Russian citizenship in Moscow. In 2004, he obtained a second – Georgian – citizenship, and soon after quietly received a French passport. According to Georgian law, acquiring citizenship of other countries leads to the loss of Georgian citizenship. In October 2011, just a few weeks after Ivanishvili announced his intention to form a political party and talked about his French passport, the Georgian authorities announced that they would strip the billionaire of his Georgian citizenship. Currently, Ivanishvili has voluntarily renounced his Russian and French passports and filed a lawsuit to declare the decision to revoke his Georgian citizenship unlawful.
In October 2011, Ivanishvili announced his intention to form a party and participate in the 2012 parliamentary elections. Due to the revocation of Georgian citizenship, his wife Ekaterina decided to lead the party, but she soon became stateless as well. In April 2012, the entrepreneur finally founded the Georgian Dream party, formally led by Manana Kobakhidze. The party became the backbone of the pre-election coalition Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia, which included five other political forces.
On October 1, 2012, the coalition founded by Ivanishvili won the parliamentary elections against the President Mikhail Saakashvili's party, the United National Movement: it secured 85 seats to 65. Two weeks after the elections, Saakashvili signed a decree restoring Ivanishvili's Georgian citizenship.
The 2012 elections are of great importance to the country, as by 2013, after the presidential elections, the parliament and the prime minister will have significantly more powers than the president. According to the previously adopted amendments to the Georgian constitution, the government will be the highest organ of the executive. The president will only formally propose candidates for the position of prime minister, and only those originally suggested by the parliament.
From October 25, 2012, to November 20, 2013, Bidzina Ivanishvili served as Prime Minister of Georgia.
In the 2018 presidential elections in Georgia he supported the candidate Salome Zourabishvili.
In January 2021, Bidzina Ivanishvili announced his withdrawal from politics.
17.02.2022