On February 5 the RA Central Electoral Commission passed a decision on airing the political advertising and promotional materials of presidency candidates on satellite of the Public Television of Armenia. As it has been reported, previously PTA did not air the free and paid political advertising, allocated, as the law stipulated, to the presidency candidates at 19.00-20.30, motivating this by the poor quality of the video materials (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, January 25-31, 2003).
CEC declined the proposal of Pavel Edigarian (representative of the National Democratic Union in CEC) on airing by satellite the previously broadcast promotional spots – saying that in this manner the volume of the promotion would have been doubled, and the time limit of 60 minutes free air and 120 minutes paid air would be exceeded.
It should be noted here that the aforementioned decision of CEC will only come into effect 10 days after it is registered with the RA Ministry of Justice, therefore, the airing of promotional materials on satellite will start on the last days of pre-election campaign (till February 17) at best.
CEC press secretary Lilit Sedrakian informed Yerevan Press Club that the decision has already been directed to the RA Ministry of Justice and will apparently be registered a judicial act within the shortest time possible.
