Ruling party head welcomes TBC founder’s ‘political goals’

Head of the Georgian Dream ruling party, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili says that he welcomes the plans of the founder of TBC Bank of Georgia Mamuka Khazaradze to create a public movement in September.

Ivanishvili says that it is good when people have a broad choice.

“As many businessmen and young people enter politics as good for the country and people,” Ivanishvili said.

He stated that the proportional election system with a zero threshold would give chances to many politicians enter parliament in 2020.

Ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili was negative to Khazaradze, saying that “there is no place for oligarchs in the Georgian parliament.”

Khazaradze said in early July that he would create a public movement in September, uniting professionals from different fields to unite the country and make it economically stable.

Khazaradze, who was forced to quit the board of the bank he founded in February, says that the Georgian government and political parties fail to ease tensions in the country and respond to the challenges Georgia faces.

He says that the movement will gather individuals with progressive and pro-western attitudes and values.

Khazaradze announced his resignation from the TBC Bank’s board earlier this year amid a row related to a possible money laundering case back in 2008, to which the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office showed an interest in the summer of 2018.

Khazaradze said “no violation took place,” and called the investigation absurd which affected the bank and the state economy.

He said that it was a “deliberate campaign” against him, by some top state officials, allegedly linked to his role in the 2.5 billion strategically important Anaklia deep-sea-port.

The Anaklia Development Consortium, which Russia dislikes, is scheduled to invest $2.5 billion in the Anaklia Deep Sea Port project, which is due to be completed in 2021.

The opposition speculated that Ivanishvili stood behind the developments against Khazaradze.