22 August 2024
Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili was mocked for delivering a campaign speech behind bulletproof glass in Mtskheta, while Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and other senior officials delivered their remarks from a separate, unprotected podium.
Ivanishvili, Georgia’s former Prime Minister and billionaire founder of the ruling party, delivered his speech in Mtskheta, north of Tbilisi, on Thursday. The campaign event was only announced six hours prior.
In his speech, Ivanishvili largely reiterated his party’s appeal from earlier this week, which urged Georgians to help Georgian Dream secure a constitutional majority in October’s parliamentary elections to defend Georgia against ‘LGBT propaganda’ and same-sex unions. Ivanishvili also hinted at his party’s plans to ‘restore territorial integrity’.
He stated that the elections should serve as a ‘Nuremberg trial’ for the opposition United National Movement (UNM) party, echoing previous statements he and his party had been making about punishing the formerly ruling opposition party for ‘instigating’ the August 2008 War, as well as more broadly ‘banning’ major opposition parties.
[Read more: Georgian Dream to seek constitutional majority to ban the opposition]
After giving his address, Ivanishvili could be seen hesitantly leaving his protected podium to bid the crowds farewell, bringing the event to a close.
‘An armoured aquarium’
Ivanishvili’s podium was met with mockery by government critics and opposition figures, who were quick to suggest that his appearance in Mtskheta behind bulletproof glass was an extension of his perceived detachment and isolation from the public.
Lelo Chair Mamuka Khazaradze accused Ivanishvili of appearing frightened and of being incapable of reading a scripted speech.
‘How many times must we see a frightened Bidzina on stage, unable even to read a prepared text, speaking to the people from behind a bulletproof aquarium?’, he said.
Nika Gvaramia, the co-founder of opposition party Ahali and one of the leaders of the Coalition for Change alliance, dismissed Ivanishvili’s speech by saying that his group had ‘no intention of scrutinising what was said by someone who builds glass barriers not only between himself and the public but also between himself and his own team’.
Prime Minister Kobakhidze and Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili delivered their remarks from a more central podium with no protective barrier.
As the political fallout from Ivanishvili’s speech unfolded after the event, Prime Minister Kobakhidze confirmed Ivanishvili’s fear of being the target of an assassination attempt. He announced that the government intended to maintain similar security measures in future campaign events in the country.
‘You know that, among other things, there is an ongoing investigation at the State Security Service [SSG] regarding this matter’, stated Kobakhidze. ‘You are aware of what’s happening globally, for one. And second, you also know the lengths to which the collective National Movement can go.’
Ruling party figures have in recent months referred to a vague selection of opposition groups as ‘the collective National Movement’, suggesting that they are both driven by the United National Movement, and directed by foreign or Western forces.
On 24 July, the SSG announced that they were investigating an alleged plot to assassinate Ivanishvili ‘reportedly organised and funded by former high-ranking officials of the Georgian government and ex-law enforcement employees currently in Ukraine’.
The SSG’s statement came months after they came under media scrutiny for failing to provide sufficient evidence to investigate Prime Minister Kobakhidze’s claims that he was threatened by an EU Commissioner.
UNM MP criticised Ivanishvili’s appearance behind glass, and suggested that the SSG investigation had been launched ‘to provide justification for this very situation’.
‘Communicating with the public through an armoured aquarium is not just a subject of ridicule; it represents a serious detachment and inadequacy in addressing the problems that exist among the people’, said UNM MP Levan Bezhashvili.
