TBILISI, September 26 – Members of Georgia’s main opposition party, the United National Movement (UNM), staged a protest Friday outside the seaside residence of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder and honorary chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
The activists brought along a toy zebra and a toy shark, a symbolic stunt aimed at drawing attention to their campaign against Ivanishvili’s influence. The protest took place near his controversial Shekvetili dendrological park and private estate on Georgia’s Black Sea coast.
UNM members declared that Ivanishvili’s “days in power are numbered” and pointed to the October 4 local elections as a potential turning point. They also handed out flyers inviting people to a larger rally planned in Shekvetili in the coming days.
Ivanishvili, a former prime minister and Georgia’s richest man, is widely regarded by the opposition as the country’s de facto power broker, despite formally stepping back from politics. His allies in Georgian Dream, now in government for more than a decade, reject this claim.
