Opposition Re-Nominates Its Candidate for Public Broadcaster Board
By Tea Mariamidze
Tuesday, March 27
Parliamentary minority European Georgia has re-nominated their candidate Ninia Kakabadze for the membership of Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) Board of Trustees.
On March 23, the parliament did not support Ninia Kakabadze, however, the European Georgia says she [Kakabadze] received the highest assessment during the selection of candidates for 4 vacant seats in 9-member board of trustees of the state-financed Public Broadcaster.
On March 26, European Georgia held a press-conference, blaming the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) MPs in rejecting “undesirable” candidates for them.
One of the leaders of the European Georgia, Elene Khoshtaria stated the majority does not respect the opposition quota.
“It is not about us and Ninia Kakabadze. Here is a talk about the democratization procedure that the opposition has to have its candidate in the board of trustees,” Khoshtaria stated.
The selection committee of the GPB Board gave recommendation to 12 candidates and offered them to the majority, opposition, Public Defender and Adjara Supreme Council.
The ruling GD selected three candidates and presented them to the parliament, out of which, the MPs supported Zaza Shatirishvili.
As for the Adjara Supreme Council, their candidate Besik Liluashvili was also approved by the lawmakers.
Two seats still remain vacant, as European Georgia’s candidate, Kakabadze was disapproved.
As for the candidate of Nino Lomjaria, Georgia’s Public Defender, her candidate Zviad Devdariani refused to participate in competition after he was accused by several women in sexual harassment.
Devdariani is the Head of the Civil Development Agency (CiDA), which works on social and economic rights and provides effective assistance to IDPs, eco-migrants, former prisoners and probationers, poverty-stricken persons, migrants and ethnic minorities.
The Public Defender noted that she was not aware of the cases of alleged sexual harassment indicated in the statement of Women’s Movement and that she learned about them after the nomination of the candidate.
Nino Lomjaria will now have to pick a new candidate and present him/her to the parliament.
