A Georgian billionaire accused of plotting a coup on Saturday declared himself a candidate in next year’s presidential election, providing a potential high-profile leader for the former Soviet state’s opposition.

Billionaire and opposition financier Badri Patarkatsishvili is one of the most prominent opposition figures in Georgia, which is experiencing one of its worst political crises since a civil war in the early 1990s.

“I have decided to participate in the presidential election,” Patarkatsishvili said in an e-mailed statement.

Georgia lies at the heart of the volatile Caucasus region — an east-west transit route which hosts a pipeline pumping oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe and is wedged between Russia and the Middle East.

(Source: Reuters)