The prominent Georgian pro-government media outlet Imedi will be sold to Prime Media Global for the apparently symbolic price of ₾1,000 ($370), the outlet’s owner, businessperson Irakli Rukhadze, has announced.
Imedi is arguably the largest and most influential mouthpiece for the ruling Georgian Dream party, and has an editorial stance that explicitly states it aims to prevent the former ruling party, the United National Movement (UNM), from returning to power. Rukhadze, who is a US citizen based in London, has nonetheless claimed that Imedi has editorial independence.
In a statement on Friday, Rukhadze said that he had made the ‘difficult and emotional’ decision to sell the outlet, claiming that the goals he had when he bought Imedi in 2018 had largely been achieved.
Beyond ‘not allowing United National Movement and its offshoots to return to power, stir up the country once again, and recapture Imedi’, Rukhadze said he had wanted Imedi to ‘stand guard over the country’s stability and democratic development’.
An additional goal arose in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — preventing Georgia from being pulled into the conflict. The claim that Georgia has been pressured by the West to open a second front in the war has been a fixture of Georgian Dream’s conspiracy theories for years.
‘Imedi’s purpose was never the unconditional support of Georgian Dream. However, supporting Georgian Dream against the United National Movement was an easy decision to make. It can be said that over the past seven to eight years, we have more or less achieved our goals. Today, the United National Movement and its satellite parties have effectively collapsed’, Rukhadze said.
Imedi will now be co-owned by Prime Media Global, which Rukhadze said ‘has been cooperating with Imedi for many years in the sale of advertising’, while ‘the remaining 50% will pass into the ownership of Maka Lomidze [Imedi’s current general director] and her four deputies’.
‘I would like to wish success to Maka and her entire team; I would like to wish success to the new owner of Imedi; finally, I would like to wish success to our country and hope that in place of the [United] National Movement, moral, intelligent, professional patriots will emerge who will be able to provide a worthy opposition to the Georgian Dream, to achieve a European future focused on the well-being of our country’, Rukhadze concluded in his Friday statement.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
