Opposition Candidates Launch Free TV Ads

Three opposition presidential candidates ? Levan Gachechiladze, Davit Gamkrelidze and Shalva Natelashvili ? launched free TV advertisement campaigns.

The three are availing of free airtime legally allocated by television stations. ?Qualified presidential candidates? (those nominated by political groups which cleared the 4% threshold in previous parliamentary elections) legally must be granted 30 second of free airtime for every hour by private television stations and 60 seconds by the Georgian Public Broadcaster.

A ten-second ad for Levan Gachechiladze, the presidential candidate backed by the nine-party opposition coalition, features photos showing police breaking up an anti-government demonstration on November 7.

Labor Party leader Shalva Natelashvili’s ad features footage of a Labor Party protest rally on December 5 and runs the following slogans: ?free healthcare;? ?free education;? ?increased pensions.?

New Rights Party leader Davit Gamkrelidze?s ad asks the question: ?what kind of a president would you like to have?? and then shows some voters responding: ?handsome;? ?honest;? ?a person who would take care of the country.?

Meanwhile, presidential candidate Mikheil Saakashvili is the only candidate running an extensive TV advertisement campaign. Most of his advertisements take a TV news report format and run for about four minutes. They show Saakashvili on the campaign trail in the regions, with a specific ad for every visit he makes.

The Saakashvili campaign is also running an ad featuring a music video performed by Zumba, a popular soft rock-folk band.

A new music video for Saakashvili is currently being produced. Composed by Goga Khachidze, the governor of Samtskhe-Javakheti and former boy band member, the song has the unlikely name of ?Misha is Cool.?

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