Georgia's riots linked to man behind Kenya's Baobab tree trade

 The man who is today the object of political aggression in Georgia is a Kremlin-backed oligarch with an eerie connection to drama around shipping of Kenya's baobab trees two years ago to Georgia. The Standard has learned.

Our sources in Georgia say Georgian national George Gvasalia a 38-year-old billionaire who bought ten Baobab trees from Kilifi had them transferred to a private park owned by the man oiling Georgia’s ruling party Dream Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Ivanishvili is founder and main financier of Georgian Dream Party whose Russian leaning policies have drawn anger from the people who have now declared over 300 days of protests. The push is to have Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s government cave-in to their demands for free and fair elections.

As Georgian prosecutors on Monday loaded five opposition leaders with charges before court including attempts to overthrow the government the people continued to push for changes to the entire election administration and release from prison of political prisoners.

Saturday October 4 had been set aside for local authority’s elections but the opposition led the people in calling for total overhaul of the electoral process to allow them remove from power an administration that is sympathetic to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Georgians have been pushing for a Ukraine-like administration in the southern Caucasus region, which is not a proxy of Moscow.

 “As long as there are no fair elections in the country with the current Pro-Russian government since last year, people will be permanently protesting for 318 days for now”. Said Lana Ghvinjilia, a civil rights activist and Director of Georgia’s de-occupation movement that has been sensitizing the population on the need to resist Russian excesses against its neighbors.

“October 4th was selected by government as elections day for local self-government. Huge protests were planned to show the scale of population which does not agree with this government” Lana said, speaking to The Standard from Tbilisi.

 In August 2023, a ship loaded with gigantic live Baobab trees left the port of Mombasa en-route to Georgia, ending a nine-month standoff between a Kilifi-based billionare who now emerges to be George Gvasalia and state agencies that had suspended his export permit. But as the ship with 10 trees sailed away, it left behind questions on the findings of a probe by several State agencies and parliamentary watchdogs on how Gvasalia got the permit.

The man has been quoted in the new media admitting to have a passion for buying, uprooting and transferring one of Africa’s endangered trees -the Baobab, and selling it to different parts of the world.

“One could call it an unethical business” He admitted to a Tanzanian journalist in 2022 claiming he is one of the few experts on trees translocation recognized by environmental bodies for the job.

Kenyan environmental activists insisted that the export was a form of bio-piracy and a mockery of President Ruto’s campaign to plant five billion trees.

“We know that Georgia is a subtropical country and prone to frost, and is not a suitable climate for baobab trees” said Genesis for Human Rights Commission Programme officer, Caleb Ngwena at the time of shipping of the trees to Georgia.

The Standard has now learnt that the trees have since died –all of them.

Temur Kighuradze on independent journalist working in Tbilisi Geogia told The Standard that the trees were purchased following a request from Georgia’s political operative Ivanishvili in 2021. They were reportedly purchased in Kilifi at a cost of Sh 100 000 each.

“However their transportation cost much more – to a sum in hundreds of thousands of US dollars”. Said Temur

The purchase was done in 2021 but the move faced opposition including a court process which delayed the shipping until August 2023.  The trees got to Georgia in October 2023. Despite initial claims, they were never destined for the Georgian National Botanical Garden but for the private park of the man who pulls political strings in Georgia- Ivanshvilli.

“His private park has a unique collection of rare trees and other plants from Georgia and all over the world”. Temur told The Standard

In August 2024, Georgian media reported the private park administration confirming all 8 Kenyan Baobabs had dried out and died.

Ivanishvili’s supporters have since blamed Georgian opposition and Kenyan authorities for hindering the transportation process which caused the death of the trees.

Georgian ecologists have meanwhile pointed to climate and soil conditions in Georgia saying that they are not suitable for trees from Africa. They said the trees were doomed – would die anyway, because of staying away from earth for long because of the protracted court battle and an unfamiliar ecosystem they were set in after hitting Georgia.

The Standard learns that Ivanishvili pulls many powerful strings in Georgia and is the man responsible for pushing the Geogian government tolean towards Russia. The Gaurdian has reported that he is a billionaire businessman and politician who founded the ruling Georgian Dream party and served as Prime Minister from 2012 to 2013.

Born in 1956, he made his fortune in Russia during the 1990’s through banking, metal mining and real estate before returning to Georgia at the turn of the century and has remained there since 2000. The man stays away from the public eye and before he got into campaigns to be PM only one photograph of him was available to the public.

“His wealth, according to different estimates, ranges from 4 to 7.5 billion USD” Says Temur.

Ivanishvili decided to enter Georgian politics in 2011, positioning himself as an opponent of then-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who promoted pro-Western foreign policies in Georgia and aimed to get closer with the European Union, the United States and NATO. Ivanishvili’s immense resources allowed his newly formed party to win the 2012 Parliamentary elections in Georgia and changed the government giving the country an administration that is friendly to Vladimir’s Moscow. 

Today he said to have formally retired from politics, but is widely regarded in Georgia as the country’s most powerful behind-the-scenes political figure, exerting significant influence over Georgia’s government and policy direction, Said Twemur.

Officially he has no governmental position, his only title is “honorary chairman” of the ruling party – Georgian Dream.

 During the first years of his rule, Prime Minister Ivanishvili claimed to continue the pro-Western foreign policy of Georgia, where the party under his control established good ties with the EU and US. In 2017 the country officially achieved a visa-free travel to countries that are members of the Shengen agreement – most European Union countries.

In 2023 Georgia received an official status of EU membership candidate status. Around the same time, however, the ruling party- under Ivanishvili drastically changed its rhetoric – cooperation and partnership with Europe and the US leading to accusations and conspiracy theories.

In the last two years the situation in Georgia grown tense as the government started to get closer and closer to Russia, especially after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The people of Georgia, who still remembered their country’s invasion by Russia back in 2008 expected their government to support Ukraine but Vladimir’s push had gotten holdof the then government which responded with anti-Western rhetoric instead.

Today Georgia has become a hub for “gray-export” of various goods to Russia, using different schemes to avoid sanctions.

Georgia itself became a more closed space, political opposition, independent media outlets and activists are constantly oppressed and shut down. Protest rallies in are often dispersed using brutal force with dozens of people severely beaten and hundreds put in jail. 

The government of current PM Irakli Kobakhidze is controlled by Ivanishvili recently announced that it was going to prohibit opposition parties.

Georgians have come up claiming there are many signs dictatorship and that Kobakhidze is following the examples of Russia and Belarus.

As of mid-2025, Ivanishvili, the founder of Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party, and a number of its senior members and allies have been sanctioned by several countries and organizations for alleged democratic backsliding, suppression of protests, and cooperation with Russian interests.

The United States sanctioned Ivanishvili on December 27, 2024, under Executive Order 14024, citing his role in undermining Georgia’s democratic institutions and advancing Russian influence in Tbilisi.

Ukraine also imposed sanctions on the man in December 2024. Eighteen other Georgian officials, including Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri, State Security head Grigol Liluashvili, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, Speaker of Parliament Shalva Papuashvili, Prime Minister Kobakhidze, and several judges and MPs faced the same fate.

The Ukrainian sanctions have blocked them from accessing their assets in Ukraine, banned them from travelling there and restricted their financial operations for a period of ten years. Volodymr Zelensky’s government has accused the Georgian Dream leadership of violently suppressing pro-European demonstrations and aligning Georgia’s policy with Vladimir’s Russia.

The Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — have each imposed coordinated travel bans and visa restrictions on a large group of Georgian Dream officials, MPs, judges, and law enforcement officers. The measures were introduced in response to what those governments described as Georgia’s democratic regression and the use of violence against peaceful protesters.

In Germany, authorities have quietly imposed entry bans and travel restrictions on several Georgian citizens linked to the government, though most names have not been made public. Civil society monitors in Tbilisi report that more than two hundred individuals associated with Georgian Dream are already restricted from traveling to various Western countries.

The European Parliament has repeatedly called for the European Union to adopt targeted sanctions against Ivanishvili and around thirty other figures tied to the ruling party. The calls, made in official resolutions, urge asset freezes and travel bans for those accused of corruption, human rights abuses, and enabling political repression. However, as of 2025, the EU itself has not yet implemented these sanctions formally. The process is actively on-going.