YPC Chairman: Law must obligate media outlets to organize at least one debate between candidates (video)
Yerevan Press Club (YPC) has published an interim report entitled “Monitoring of Armenian Broadcast Media Coverage of Elections to RA National Assembly in 2017.” It covers the period between February 15 and March 4, 2017(before the election campaign which kicked off on March 5 and lasted until March 31). Talking to journalists on Tuesday, YPC Chairman Boris Navasardyan said the international observers who followed the course of the Sunday polls, expressed their satisfaction with the results. He added that the overall picture of the elections and their coverage defers from the previous ones very slightly. Mr Navasardyan particularly emphasized the television interviews of Armenia's first President Levon Ter-Petrosyan and businessman Gagik Tsarukyan who leads the Tsarukyan bloc. "It is noteworthy that this time Gagik Tsarukyan did not give an interview from his house as was the case in the previous campaigns, but in a pavilion,” the YPC president stressed. Boris Navasardyan says again TV channels did not held debates between candidates. “If debates are not held on a voluntary basis, then it should be done by law.” In conclusion, he added that the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), Tsarukyan allaince, Congress-HZhK alliance, Yelk (Way Out) alliance and Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) were covered most in the media.
