EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - TV Ads Are the Battleground of Choice for Georgia's Presidential Candidates

EURASIA INSIGHT

TV ADS ARE THE BATTLEGROUND OF CHOICE FOR GEORGIA’S PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
Giorgi Lomsadze 1/03/08

As Georgia’s presidential campaign enters its final stage, television advertising has become the weapon of choice for most of the race’s seven presidential candidates.

Few would say, however, that it is a weapon equally handled by all seven contenders. Monitoring groups put Mikheil Saakashvili, who is seeking re-election, easily in the lead for ad time.

In its January 3 assessment of campaign media usage, the Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that Saakashvili ads easily dominated free and paid airtime. Between December 23 and 29, six television stations broadcast some 506 spots for the former president, compared with 352 for opposition coalition candidate Levan Gachechiladze, widely viewed as Saakashvili’s main challenger. Tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili had the fewest number of ads, at 87, but dominated air time on news programs � a reflection of recent coup allegations brought against his campaign, and his subsequent decision, later reversed, to withdraw from the race. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Little-known economist Gia Maisashvili was the only candidate to not broadcast any television ads.

Earlier reports have put Saakashvili in the lead for paid advertisements, though data was not immediately available about their frequency for the surveyed period. A recent study by market researcher GORBI Gallup International, commissioned by Transparency International and the watchdog Fair Elections, estimated Saakashvili’s investment in campaign advertising at $4.1 million between December 4-23.

Television spots for Saakashvili tend to be visually lush and skillfully edited. In what has become a signature tune for the Saakashvili campaign, one publicity spot features a crowd of folk dancers, soldiers, workers and balloon-clasping children skipping through the streets of a picture-perfect Georgian town to the upbeat rhythm of "Misha Magaria," or "Misha Is Cool," a campaign ditty penned by the governor of Georgia’s Samtskhe-Javakheti region.

The video was filmed in the newly restored town of Sighnaghi, in the Kakheti wine region. The tiny town has come to symbolize the Saakashvili campaign to refurbish decaying cities, build roads and infrastructure, and features frequently on itineraries for high-ranking foreign guests.

Ads for opposition candidates � primarily aired during fee-free time slots � often hit a less sunny note.

An ad for opposition coalition candidate Gachechiladze features footage from November 7 protests that shows, amidst a haze of tear gas, anti-government demonstrators being chased and beaten by riot police. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Fee-based ads for tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili follow a similar line, alternating with shots of the controversial opposition candidate addressing protestors on November 2.

Religion also plays a role. A campaign ad for New Rights Party leader Davit Gamkrelidze shows a truck ramming into a church interspersed with shots of men in military fatigues and ski masks pounding a person prone to the ground. "Since the day he came to power, Saakashvili’s government has been fighting the Georgian church," an announcer says, adding that under Gamkrelidze, the state would pay 1 million lari (about $629, 683) per year to each diocese of the Georgian Orthodox Church for damages incurred after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Gachechiladze’s ads also touch on a similarly strong cultural nerve � respect for entertainment celebrities and prestigious intellectuals. The spots feature such individuals saying the parliamentarian’s campaign motto "Georgia First of All."

A slew of watchdogs are also keeping a close eye on media campaign coverage, focusing on the key medium, television. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s December 14-24 interim election monitoring report noted that Saakashvili enjoys unfair advantage in terms of media coverage. "[M]edia monitoring results indicate a lack of balance in the news coverage of most monitored TV stations, with Mr. Saakashvili generally receiving the most coverage," the report said. Imedi TV, which ceased broadcasting on December 26, took a more critical tone, according to the findings.

The GORBI report found that while the "absolute majority (97 percent)" of television coverage of candidates between December 10 and 19 ranked as "neutral," Gachechiladze received the bulk of the negative coverage. The report did not define standards for "neutral" or "negative" coverage, however.

By contrast, the Media Council, an organization set up by various media organizations to monitor professional standards and ethics in journalism, reports that for the past three weeks the opposition has received more coverage than Saakashvili and government officials taken together.

Camera angles can also play a role, notes the representative of the so-called Michnik group, a European Commission-led initiative led by Polish journalist Adam Michnik that scans Georgian media for hate speech, defamation and calls for violence.

"[T]he way Saakashvili is covered differs from everybody else," commented David Paichadze, head of the journalism department at Tbilisi State University. "The camera always pans out to take a wider shot and show that he’s surrounded by a large number of supporters, while in reports on other candidates we mostly see a close-up on the candidate." Mze and Rustavi-2, owned by the same company, have also "endlessly been playing footage of Gachechiladze using foul language," he added.

Print media, however, which reaches a much smaller audience, has been less favorable of Saakashvili. Most newspaper stories that were qualified as negative were critical of the former president, the GORBI report says.

Apart from news media, Saakashvili has been effectively using billboards and public transportation to communicate with voters. Both in Tbilisi and in the regions, buses carry campaign photos of a smiling Saakashvili, with super-imposed slogans about reducing poverty or rural development, while bus shelters often feature his ballot number and similar photos. Ad agencies could not be reached for estimates of the cost of such advertising.

Opposition candidates are not known to have opted for such advertising strategies.

Editor�s Note: Giorgi Lomsadze is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

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