October 6: The ruling party uses extremely unethical election ads for political purposes
- “Georgian Dream” requests that TV broadcasters air an election video, in which the tragedy of the Ukrainian people is used speculatively for election purposes. Despite the fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine condemned the placement of election banners with the same content throughout Georgia, and the EU ambassador in Georgia strongly criticised them, the “Georgian Dream” further activated the mentioned campaign and requested broadcasters to air the videos. While critical TV stations - “Formula”, “Mtavari Arkhi” and “TV Pirveli” - refuse to air it, pro-government TV stations - “Imedi”, “PosTV” and “Rustavi 2” - have already aired the advertisement. The video has also been aired by “Public Broadcaster”.
We believe that the “Georgian Dream” should refrain from manipulating the tragedy of the Ukrainian people for political and electoral purposes, as well as from using advertisements with degrading, unethical content. Also, we call on the Communications Commission to take into account the severity of the context and with its own decision, on the one hand, not to hamper the functioning of the broadcasters, and on the other hand, not to facilitate and become propaganda tools of the ruling party (for more details, see “Transparency International-Georgia's” and “Georgia's European Orbit's” joint statement).