The view from the angle of the former PM

Former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s talk show debuted on March 15 with the aim of providing the public with qualified analyses. The show is produced by Ivanishvili’s organization 2030.

As the first guest of the newly-hatched program stressed, Georgians are being deluded by “the biased, UNM -influenced TV channel Rustavi 2”, which still has the wherewithal to run the media field.

Thus, the former PM emphasized that providing alternative, objective information to people was essential.

The talk show carries the same name as the organization 2030. Ivanishvili said that Georgia requires at least two decades to become a truly European country.

Ivanishvili said that society should not have over-inflated expectations, and added that they should know what to demand and when from the government. He said that people should know the real situation well in order not to ask the government to fulfill unrealistic demands, which cannot be delivered quickly.

“In the case that we fail to realize what to demand from the government, we might face a disaster,” Ivanishvili said, stressing that the opposition United National Movement (UNM) is now trying to portray the current government as incapable.

“If the people do not demand what the government actually can deliver, and if the people start demanding immediately something that can only be done in ten years … we may get a reality when the government functions well, but people are dissatisfied anyway,” Ivanishvili said.

Ivanishvili states that when the UNM was in office, they tried to persuade people (like in Soviet times) that everything was all right, and now, when they are in the opposition, are doing their utmost to create false illusions of collapse and downfall, and to trigger unrest.

“But them regaining power is absurd,” Ivanishvili says.

Commenting on his remarks made in December of 2012 – one month after becoming the prime minister, when he pledged that each of the following years of GD government’s term in office before the 2016 elections would have seen significant economic progress, Ivanishvili said that this progress was made more in terms of democratic development rather than in the economic field.

The UNM has criticized Ivanishvili for making false promises during the pre-election period, and underscored that a large turn-out at the UNM’s March 21 rally, would be a response with regard to the UNM’s chances and the government’s unprofessionalism.

It appears that Ivanishvili plans to oppose the “deep-rooted propaganda mechanism” through a single talk show, and aims to get people to evaluate facts and events as he himself does.