As anticipated, Tamar Kintsurashvili was elected to a six-year term by the eight-member Public Broadcasting Board as the Director-General of Public Broadcasting on August 19 with six votes.

Tamar Kintsurashvili was herself member of the Board, but withdrew her membership on August 13 to join 23 candidates running for the post. Kintsurashvili’s decision was regarded as highly-controversial and most of the participants of the competition criticized her move as “unethical.”

Kintsurashvili, 35, worked for the newspaper Droni in 1993-2000 and also served as a PR manager at the beer company Castel-Georgia in 2001. She has led media programs at the human rights NGO Liberty Institute since 2001.

This is the second competition, as in July the nine-member Board of Public Broadcasting declined all the sixteen candidates, citing the contenders’ lack of experience in media management.

The appointment of the general director is a crucial step in establishing Public Broadcasting, which was launched by new legislation that aims to create a politically independent, publicly-funded broadcasting company. The board was approved by the Parliament from a list submitted by initiative groups, and short-listed by the President.