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.
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.
The ruling party promised it would go through all formal procedures to defeat one of the bills, which already passed in the first reading. That will take more than 10 days though.
A leadership election in Georgia's biggest opposition party has shown that informal rule may be a more widespread problem in the country than previously thought.