Armenia’s National TV and Radio Committee monitored over 6,500 broadcasting hours during election campaign

YEREVAN, May 6. /ARKA/. Armenia's National Committee on Television and Radio monitored over 6,500 broadcasting hours within the period of electoral campaign, the Head of Committee Grigor Amalyan said on Sunday. 

“Within the reported period we monitored 45 TV channels and 20 radio stations in compliance with the Electoral Code of Armenia,” he said.

According to him, the Committee was controlling broadcasting time of TV and radio networks, their registration data, as well as signals made by political forces, mass media and other sources on the irregularities in providing parties with equal time. 

Amalyan noted because of the restrictions in shots and technology the Committee didn’t monitored broadcasting time of foreign channels operating in Armenia. 

“Nevertheless, based on the data coming from mass media, political forces, NGOs we were checking their operation,” he said. 

Amalyan pointed out that the Committee was also monitoring the situation in the provinces.

He also added that the outright report on the Committee’s activity will be made and presented to the civil society in two-three days after the polls. 

Armenia's Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has registered eight political parties and one electoral bloc for the May 6 parliamentary elections, which will compete for 90 proportional seats in the National Assembly. Besides the three coalition parties - the Republican Party of Armenia, Bargavach Hayastan (Prosperous Armenia) and Orinats Yerkir, there also the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), Zharangutyun (Heritage), which has a combined list with Free Democrats, the Armenian National Congress (electoral bloc), the Democratic Party of Armenia, the Armenian Communist Party and the United Armenians party that are included in the ballots.

Total of 137 candidates will compete for 41 majoritarian seats in the parliament, and the two precincts will hold uncontested elections.

In compliance with the Electoral Code of Armenia parties should gain at least 5% of votes and a bloc- 7% to receive seats in the parliament. 

The parliamentary elections of the fifth convocation in Armenia will be monitored by 647 international observers of OSCE/ODIHR (258 observers), PACE (37), Inter-parliamentary Assembly of CIS (22), CIS observation mission (151), International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) (3), as well as International Expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES) (20), European Parliament (12), OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (69), SILBA international organization (16), representatives of the embassies accredited in Armenia (35), representatives of foreign Central Electoral Commissions (24).

CEC has already registered unprecedented number of local election observers – over 31,000. The biggest number of the observers will be from Pan-Armenian Youth Association (5555), and the least ( one observer) – from Rights Information Center. 

Receiving the data from the district electoral commissions CEC tells the state television and radio the preliminary results of the elections no later than 24 hours after voting. 

The final results of the elections are announced on the seventh day after the polls.--0-