Page 6 - GEORptMay18

2.0 Politics
2.1 Billionaire Georgian Dream founder Ivanishvili to
return to politics
Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s billionaire former prime minister, is to return to politics at the helm of the Georgian Dream party he founded in 2012.
Ivanishvili, who built up his fortune mainly in Russia, served as prime minister briefly from October 2012, when his party ousted former president Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) in a shock upset for the ruling party, to November 2013. He then announced his decision to quit politics, but the centre-left Georgian Dream went on to win the 2016 parliamentary election and remains in power.
Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili announced the news of Ivanishvili's return after a Georgian Dream meeting on April 26. “I want to tell you that in person on behalf of my team, I offered to ask the founder of our party to lead the party and I am happy that Mr. Bidzina Ivanishvili has agreed,” Kvirikashvili said according to a party statement .
He stressed the “new challenges” facing Georgia, and the need to strengthen both the state and the ruling party. “He is capable of strengthening the main political core of the party as the chair of the party, to provide more and new dynamics for further development, more efficiency and progression...”
It’s not clear whether Ivanishvili plans to take a formal role within the government. This in the view of opposition parties may not make much difference to the political situation, since many claim he is still the power behind the scenes despite stepping out of the political arena in 2013.
Ivanishvili still has to be elected back to the head of Georgian Dream, but Kvirikashvili implied that this would be a formality. “In the next few days, the political council session will be held, and soon we are sure that the political council and the delegates from all over Georgia will unanimously elect Bidzina Ivanishvili as the new chairman,” he said.
Despite his party’s continued popularity — it went on to do well in last year’s local elections including in Tbilisi and most of the other main cities — Ivanishvili was hit by controversy ahead of the election. In October, demonstrators clashed with police in the capital after gathering to criticise the city council's decision to h and over two strategic plots o f land in the city to Ivanishvili.
2.2 Political hostility to journalists intensifies from Central Europe to Eurasia
Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Poland are among the countries in Central Europe and Eurasia given particularly dishonourable mentions in the latest annual World Press Freedom Index
6 GEORGIA Country Report May 2018 www.intellinews.com