Georgian Public Broadcaster’s (GPB) board of trustees has shortlisted five out of 143 applicants, who have applied for a vacant post of GPB’s general director.

Five shortlisted contenders, who will now be interviewed by the board members, are: Giorgi Baratashvili, GPB’s acting director and head of its technical department; Natia Abramia who now works for BBC; Tinatin Rukhadze, a managing partner with Event Masters and previously PR manager at construction firm Center Point; Megi Tavdumadze with an experience of working for UNDP and UNESCO; Nikoloz Makharashvili of Tbilisi-based International Black Sea University.

Judging based on how board members’ votes distributed while selecting shortlisted contenders, Baratashvili seems to be a frontrunner. He serves as an acting director of GPB after Giorgi Chanturia quit the post of public broadcaster’s general director on December 14.

Ten board members voted for Baratashvili to be shortlisted, followed by Abramia with 8 votes and others received 7 votes each, which was the minimum required to endorse a candidate to a second stage, involving interviewing by 13-member board to be held on December 21-22.

Among 143 applicants there were Mamuka Areshidze, who was Georgian Dream’s majoritarian MP candidate in Gardabani single-mandate constituency, where he lost the race to UNM candidate, and Irakli Tabliashvili, a long-time journalist who in lead up to the parliamentary elections was briefly an editor of the Georgian Dream’s newspaper. None of them were shortlisted receiving three votes each.