On February 16 the International Press Center "Elections-2003" at
the Journalists Union of Armenia hosted a press conference of Serge Sargsian,
the head of the campaign staff of presidency candidate Robert Kocharian, was
held. Answering the question about the work on the media during the election
campaign, Serge Sargsian said that he sees no private media that was objective.
In his opinion, its is primarily due to the specifics of the transitional period
in Armenia and the lack of appropriate experience and knowledge of objective
election coverage that the journalists experience.
On February 17 at the IPC the RA presidency candidate Vazgen Manukian also
expressed his attitude towards the election campaign coverage. In his opinion,
despite the "black PR" cases, the election campaign coverage was mostly
developing normally. The media participation was quite active and it is very
important that they cooperated with various campaign staffs, Vazgen Manukian
noted.