Bidzina Ivanishvili, the head of Georgia’s ruling party and the country’s wealthiest man, said on January 11 he was leaving politics “for good”, noting his “mission is complete.”

It is the second time Ivanishvili has announced his retirement from politics in Georgia.

In November 2013, when Ivanishvili voluntarily stepped down as prime minister, he also claimed that he was quitting the political arena. However, in 2018, Ivanishvili announced his formal return. He was immediately elected to serve as chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream.

Critics accuse Ivanishvili of having continued to govern the country from behind the scenes.

A distinguished fellow of Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative and Eurasia Center, Daniel Fried told the Accent, that “it’s hard for him to judge, but in his experience, influential political leaders do not usually relinquish their power even if they give up their formal positions.”

As Ivanishvili said, in 2012 a peaceful transfer of power did not take place, "In reality, at the time, the Georgian Dream won a war and forced the violent ruling team to cede the power".

According to Fried, “Georgians and especially Americans need to be careful not to use militarized language with respect to politics”:

“There was a lot for which the Saakashvili team could be criticized, including excessive use of force. But when it lost an election in 2012, it gave up power peacefully. Georgia Dream won an election in 2012, not a war. Georgians (and especially Americans) need to be careful not to use militarized language with respect to politics.”

Fried believes that any democratic country “need to constantly tend the garden of democracy and to remember that the art of politics is supposed to be the art of public service”.

“It’s not for me, or for any non-Georgian, to make judgments with respect to Georgia’s political debates. The US has plenty to improve in its own democracy and the US, Georgia, and other democracies need to respect independent institutions in and out of government, especially the judiciary. All democracies must learn as well to be self-correcting within the norms of democracy – not through violence. There seems to have been some progress recently with respect to political participation, such as the 2020 Constitutional Amendments on the parliamentary “threshold” and the move to a proportional system in 2024.

The true arbiter of government performance must be the Georgian voter. Let’s just stipulate that all countries need to constantly tend the garden of democracy, strengthen its norms and institutions, and to remember that the art of politics is supposed to be the art of public service, where private ambition can be channeled into public good. That may sound naïve, but it is best practice and we ignore this principle at our peril,” Fried added.