Public TV Board Chair Remains on Post for Now

Although chairman of the public TV’s board, Irakli Tripolski, announced on May 27 that he was intending to resign, next day he changed the decision and said he would remain on the position for now.

Tripolski, however, said he would remain only if other members of the board accepted his proposals aimed at strengthening the board’s role.

“I will meet with the board members this Friday [May 30] and lay out my proposals. I want this meeting to be public and journalists to be allowed at the meeting,” Tripolski said while speaking at the Tbilisi-based FM radio station, Ucnobi, on May 28. “If my proposals are acceptable for the board members and they agree to work as one team than I find it possible to remain on the position, but otherwise there is no reason.”

He declined to specify proposal he wanted to be accepted by the board and said it would become public when he meets the board members on Friday. But from his conversation it became clear that he was discontent with too little powers the board of trustees had on defining the public TV’s editorial policy.

Tripolski said on May 27 that he was resigning in protest over “biased reporting” of the public TV and in particular of the May 26 protest rally.

He, however, came under criticism from some opposition parties, as well as from some non-governmental groups affiliated with the opposition, for this move. They have claimed that Tripolski’s decision could have further increased the state grip on the public TV and suggested that it would be more effective to resist any pressure from within the television rather than by quitting the position.

Tripolski said that he changed the decision to immediately resign after this, as he described it, “pleasant pressure.”