GNCC has held a presentation of the final report of the media monitoring of pre-elections of the Georgian Parliamentary elections of 2016, at the hotel “Radisson.” The summery report was presented by the Chairman of the Commission -Mr. Vakhtang Abashidze, the head of Broadcasting Regulatory department – Mr. Ivane Makharadze and the chief specialist of the Legal department – Miss Ekaterine Chakhrakia. Subjects of the Commission’s pre-election observations were: pre-election advertisement, pre-election debates, news and social-political programs as well as pre-election agitation. Within the scope of media monitoring, The Commission also observed newspapers which are financed from local or central budgets.

During the final report period, that contained data from June 8 up until October 29 of 2016, while monitoring news and social-political programs as well as pre-election debates, the attention has been stressed on the airtime allocated for the qualified election subjects and on  the coverage of their pre-election activities by broadcasting companies within the scope of the principles of fairness. In case of non-fulfillment of the obligations by a broadcasters’ imposed on them by the current legislation, in the absence of objective circumstances, the Commission was studying each concrete issue and was providing activities defined by the law.

The final report summarizes the key recommendations,, identifies problems and challenges, which, in Commission’s opinion have to be analyzed and have to become the subject of public discussion for the purpose to improve legislation or regulatory norms in the nearest future.

An event was attended by the representatives from broadcasting sector, CEC, the Interagency Commission for Free and Fair Elections, Public Defender's Office, NGO’s and the embassies and international mission’s accredited in Georgia.   

The full version of the presentation to be published in the nearest future.