On August 2, the US Ambassador to Georgia, Kelly Degnan commented on the upcoming local self-government pre-election campaign, the crucial role of media in it and the role of the Georgian government to provide safe environment for journalists in fulfilling their professional duties.
“We’ve already seen that the campaign is well underway. There have been some very important electoral reforms adapted as a result of April 19 Agreement and they provide the opportunity to provide these elections in October (local self-government elections) be an improvement over previous elections. They do require training. This will only be an improvement if the Central Election Commission, district and provincial election commissioners have the training they need, and the voters have training to understand what is different, what is new and make sure that they can have confidence in the outcome of the election results. That confidence is very important to ensuring that there’s going to be progress and a strong atmosphere for continuing the reform that needs to be done and also to ensure that the voters are well represented.
A key component of that is the media. The media always plays an important role, but particularly during an election campaign. The media is how voters have the information they need to make informed decisions. The attacks we’ve seen recently, the violent attacks, but also the threats and bullying against journalists is not only unconstitutional, but it is an attack against a core pillar of democracy. Journalists need to know that they can go out and do their job, get the information that the public needs, hold public institutions accountable without intimidation, or fear of violence. I sincerely hope that there will be clear messages from the government that there are consequences to violent attacks against the media, any kind of attacks: verbal, bullying, intimidation will not be tolerated. In that environment the voters will be able to get the information they need to make informed decisions.”
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