Number of Seats in Public TV Board Increased

The Parliament approved on September 22 a proposal with its third and final reading envisaging the increase in number of members of the public broadcaster’s board of trustees from the current nine to fifteen.

Currently in the nine-seat board one seat remains vacant, but with the September 22 decision of the Parliament total of seven new members of the board will have to be elected. 

“Although in generally we are against of politicizing this issue, we opened the door and enabled the opposition to have their representatives [in the board],” Pavle Kublashvili, a lawmaker from the ruling party said, referring to the authorities’ statements about readiness to allow opposition to nominate their favorite candidates for the vacant seats in the board.

In his speech to the Parliament on July 20, President Saakashvili said the opposition would be able to take seats in the board; he also said that one seat should be taken by a civil society representative.

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