Political advertising essentially is not regulated in Armenia. Article 1 Paragraph4 of the RA Law on Advertising reads: \u201cThis Law does not regulate the relations connected to political advertising.\u201d Moreover, in neither this or any other law is the term \u201cpolitical advertising\u201d defined.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only the Electoral Code that regulates it somewhat, calling it, however, not political advertising but election campaign. And a certain period of time is established for the election campaign, with a particular emphasis that outside of that period, campaigning (let me stress: campaigning, not political advertising) is not prohibited. This is the wording in Chapter 4, Article 19<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThe period of election campaign shall be the period prescribed by this Code during which the rules prescribed by this Code and aimed at ensuring equal opportunities for the political parties running in elections and candidates, such as the rules on making use of public resources, conducting election campaign and ensuring financial transparency, are effective. <\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that the period of election campaign is fixed shall not restrict the conduct of election campaign during other periods not prohibited by this Code.<\/p>\n \u201cThe period of election campaign shall start on the seventh day following the last day of the time period prescribed by this Code for the registration of the electoral lists of political parties running<\/p>\n in elections and of candidates, and shall expire on the day before voting day. The campaign during that period shall be hereinafter referred to as \u2018the election campaign.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n And it was referring to this wording that government officials (for example, Minister and Chief of Staff of the RA Government Davit Harutyunayn<\/a>) justified the appearance of election posters in the capital ahead of the official start of the election campaign, saying: \u201cThe election campaign is regulated beginning on the 5th of the month, but that doesn\u2019t mean that no one can engage in campaigning until the 5th of the month \u2014 just that the election campaign begins on March 5th. And until then, any speeches, appeals, and so on, is an ordinary campaign, which is not regulated by law. And that which is not prohibited by law is permitted.\u201d<\/p>\n You can\u2019t say anything. Except for one thing: \u201cWell then regulate it \u2014 who\u2019s stopping you?\u201d<\/p>\n I had once proposed to stipulate in the Electoral Code banning any campaigning or political advertising from the day an election is announced to the start of the election campaign period. But my proposal, as you can see, wasn\u2019t adopted.<\/p>\n And not being regulated is beneficial to the ruling authorities, whose members immediately after the election is announced and until the start of the official campaign period begin to create the illusion of intense activity, essentially carrying out an election campaign, which is not an \u201celection\u201d campaign per se, since that\u2019s how it\u2019s defined in the Electoral Code\u2026 I agree, it\u2019s ludicrous. <\/p>\n Please don\u2019t misunderstand me: I\u2019m not against political advertising, but I want it to be regulated by some law.<\/p>\n In my opinion, the next hidden danger is the so-called \u201cday of silence.\u201d<\/p>\n The same Electoral Code article stipulates: \u201cCampaigning on voting day and on the preceding day through public speeches, public events, as well as through print media, and radio and TV stations that broadcast terrestrially (including during satellite broadcasting) shall be prohibited.\u201d<\/p>\n Several times I\u2019ve had the opportunity to say that the ban on campaigning on election day and the preceding day is an anachronism. <\/p>\n In the current age of technology it\u2019s not possible to monitor, for example, where campaign materials will appear online. <\/p>\n An obvious example: any political party has an ad on the front page of any website, and that remains also on the day preceding and the day of the election. Or, the website publishes nothing new on April 1, doesn\u2019t update its newsfeed and yesterday\u2019s news, which may also be campaign news, remains on the front page\u2026<\/p>\n Examples abound. For print media, it\u2019s easy: they simply don\u2019t go to print on those days. It\u2019s hardest for TV news and news websites: appearing in the day\u2019s news may be any person who actively participated in the election campaign, and you can\u2019t predict the consequences\u2026 <\/p>\n But the worst thing is that this ban still works in favor of the current authorities.<\/p>\n Experience shows that on that day the president, prime minister or the ministers meet with some delegation or open something. I think this will happen during this election too. The prime minister will welcome a delegation; the defense minister will suddenly remember that he has to go visit the border; and the Yerevan mayor, for example, will become acquainted with the condition of the parks (well, to see \u201cis it beautiful,\u201d or not?).<\/p>\n All this will be covered by all the TV and radio stations, and then the same officials and the Central Electoral Commission representatives with smart looks on their faces (are your ears ringing, Baron Munchausen?) will say that that wasn\u2019t a violation: people are fulfilling their official duties\u2026<\/p>\n By the way, another example of indirect campaigning is when on election day television stations show this or that government official voting. I emphasize: mainly government officials, who were campaigning also during the election campaign period. But, as you know, voting and then making a speech before numerous cameras is not campaigning. <\/p>\n But isn\u2019t it better to immediately remove that \u201cday of silence\u201d and the ban on campaigning on election day, to prevent such questions being asked by people like this lowly journalist?<\/p>\n Mesrop Harutyunyan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Political advertising essentially is not regulated in Armenia. Article 1 Paragraph4 of the RA Law on Advertising reads: \u201cThis Law does not regulate the relations connected to political advertising.\u201d Moreover, in neither this or any other law is the term \u201cpolitical advertising\u201d defined. It\u2019s only the Electoral Code that regulates it somewhat, calling it, however, Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-critique","author_posts-mesrop-harutyunyan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}