Parliament given the chance to break with the past on broadcasting board

December 18, 2009 by georgiamedia

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF version

The Georgian parliament is today voting on new members of the board of the public television channel.

Although the additional members being picked today were promised to give opposition voices a bigger say in the channel's affairs the president still exercises enormous control - all the candidates going forward have to be approved by him and he could and did manipulate the process: for instance by excluding the head of Georgia's trade union federation.

A group of civil society activists known as the "media club" have urged parliamentarians to break with the past and elect their slate of non-party advocates for media freedom: but discussion in parliament has suggested that the opposition parties sitting there regard the appointments process as part of their patronage and intend to vote for candidates aligned with their parties rather than seek a more radical step towards breaking with state control of television.

Permalink