With little willingness among politicians to overcome the divisions that plague the country, some groups and individuals are taking matters into their own hands.
The BBC's findings are a boon to Georgia's ruling party, which has long cast Davit Kezerashvili as a corrupt oligarch secretly bankrolling the opposition.
Russian officials and propagandists had several reactions to the recent crisis in Georgia: gloating, echoing the Georgian government's rhetoric, and casually threatening to bomb Tbilisi into the ground.
The election of an independent ombudsperson through a transparent process was among the 12 conditions the country must fulfill to become an EU membership candidate.