Address of the Partnership For Free Choice address about the issues related with the 2016 Parliamentary Elections

Member organizations of the Partnership For Free Choice are: International Center of Civil Culture, Georgian Regional Broadcasters’ Association, Public Defendant, Georgian Media-Monitoring Center, The Article 42 of the Constitution, Human Rights Center, Multinational Georgia. They agree with the recommendations of the Venice Commission and ODIHR listed in their common resolution regarding better implementation of the election reforms in future; also, the recommendations derive from lack of participation of all interested parties in the consultations that damaged inclusivity of the process. 

We, the members of the Partnership For Free Choice, believe that the process indeed was not transparent. We addressed the government about it many times, but in vain. We think it was necessary to create the election working group with wide participation of the society. The Venice resolution also underlined that creation of broad format is very important even nowadays to ensure transparency of the process, maximum consensus and sharing the responsibility. 

The planned amendments to the laws are obvious examples of the non-transparent processes : the Parliament of Georgia has already accepted the amendments to the Law on Broadcasting in the first hearing. The amendment says that authorized licensed TV-broadcaster is obliged to air the programs only in official language. 

If the amendment is finally adopted, updating ethnic minorities will become particularly problematic. It is worth to mention, that there are three Georgian-Armenian local broadcasters in Samtskhe-Javakheti and three Azerbaijani-Georgian local broadcasters in Kvemo Kartli region. 

We believe, the amendments clearly restrict the rights of minorities and Georgian citizens in such an important election period and they stay beyond information space, which is badly damaging state interests. 

The aim to create the Partnership For Free Choice is to promote free and fair environment for the 2016 Parliamentary Elections by uniting organizations and experts from different fields with their resources and capacities. 

The Partnership For Free Elections elaborates and presents the recommendations to the society in order to improve the election environment; monitors media during the election period; if needed, initiates new regulations; monitors pre-election environment; through the cooperation with NGOs and media-organizations the Partnership will create common network in Georgia, which will increase possibility of rapid dissemination and response of the information during pre-election period and on the election day; the Partnership For Free Choice will collaborate with other NGOs working on the elections issues and all involved parties in the pre-election process. 

The Partnership For Free Choice

Contact information:

 International Center of Civil Culture (Konstantine Kandelaki - 599157922);

 Georgian Association of Regional Broadcasters (Natia Kuprashvili - 55536132);

 Georgian Media-Monitoring Center (Ia Mamaladze - 599 375 373);

 Public Advocacy (Irina Putkaradze - 599618229);

 The Article 42 of the Constitution (Irina Pileeva - 599502873);

 Human Rights Center (Aleko Tskitishvili - 599 906094);

 Multinational Georgia (Arnold Stepanyan - 571959565).

Contact e-mails: georgian.ngocoalition@yahoo.com; ia@gurianews.com.