From February 6th to April 29th, 2017, the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression conducted monitoring of press conferences, held by 9 political parties and alliances running for Parliament on April 2, 2017. According to the list published on February 17th, 2017, by the Central Electoral Commission, those political forces are: the EXIT Alliance, the Free Democrats Party, the Armenian Revival Party, the Tsarukyan Alliance, the Congress – People’s Party of Armenia Alliance, the Republican Party of Armenia, the Ohanyan – Raffi – Oskanian Alliance, and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation “Dashnaktsutyun”.
The study aimed to reveal the share of references to Armenia’s economic and social issues and the solutions proposed to address those issues in the campaign press conferences held by the representatives of political parties. The monitoring activity consisted of 3 stages, each lasting 27 days: the period prior to the official campaign, the official campaign period and the post-campaign stage. Respectively, the first stage lasted from February 6th to March 4th, the second was from March 5th to the 31st, and the third one extended from April 3rd to 29th. A comparative analysis has been conducted on the basis of the data collected in all the 3 stages of monitoring.
