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Some candidates for GPB board of trustee membership named

By Tatia Megeneishvili
Friday, December 27
The Second Channel of the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) introduced the 27 candidates for membership of the GPB board of trustees on December 24. The contenders had the opportunity to share their concepts to the public. Each had 3 minutes to present their visions followed by Q&A with the host of the show, Dodo Shonava.

The Parliamentary minority has already named the candidacies of Ninia Kakabadze and Ketevan Mtskiladze as to-be members of the Board of Trustees of the GPB. The United National Movement (UNM) continues consultations over the third candidacy.

Ninia Kakabadze is a film critic and doctoral student at Ilia State University. Since 2011, she has been an invited author of the TV show “Thoughts of the Week” at TV Maestro and has worked at the internet television company, ArtArea, since 2012.

Ketevan Mskhiladze is an English language editor at Tabula magazine and a founder of the Media Development Fund. Also, she has been working as a head of the monitoring group of the GPB.

UNM member Sergo Ratiani said that the candidates, who are effective, independent and impartial, have already been named. "At this stage we refrain from naming the third member, it is our quota, and we can choose later. We will go out on this voting with two members,” he said stressing that the above mentioned candidates are effective, independent and impartial while the consultation over their third candidate is ongoing.

The parliamentary majority also named one of their candidates. According to the Georgian Dream MP Tina Khidasheli, Natela Sakhokia will be one of their candidates. “We recommend Sakhokia. For now she is the only candidate who will be presented by us. We put our attention on her as on one of the most deserving persons in the lineup, the rest we will discuss in the next round,” Khidasheli stated.

The Public Defender, Ucha Nanuashvili, has also presented two candidacies. They are Marina Muskhelishvili and Lela Gaprindashvili. The Adjara Supreme Council approved the candidacy of Gennady Geladze as one of the to-be members of the Board of Trustees. The GPB will have a new Board of Trustees from January 2014.

Professor Marina Muskhelishvili is a director of NGO Society Research Center. She also has been an invited researcher to the Fulbright program of Washington University and serves as a consultant to the Director General of GPB.

Lela Gafrindashvili, is an associated professor at Tbilisi State University and a member of the advisory board of the Women’s Fund in Georgia.

The special commission for selecting the candidates for membership in the GPB Board of Trustees considered applications from 68 candidates, while only 27 contenders have been finally selected. The GPB’s Board of Trustees will be staffed by 9 members: three contenders will be elected by the parliamentary majority, 3 by the minority, 2 by the Public Defender and 1 by the Adjara Supreme Council.