David Stepanyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
On May 5th, the elections to the Yerevan Council of Elders will take place. A mayor will be a politician who heads a proportional list of the political force which will get a majority of voices. Seven political forces participate in the election campaign – the Republican Party of Armenia, Orinats Yerkir, Heritage, Arakelutyun, Prosperous Armenia, the Armenian National Congress, and Dashnaktsuyun.
According to sociologists, no more than 45% of voters will take part in the elections. However, unlike ordinary citizens, the political spectrum is excited about the elections. The forces which earlier rejected participation in the presidential elections are now ready to fight for mayor’s place – PA, Dashnaktsutyun, and the ANC. Today almost all political forces participating in the election campaign are intensively insulting each other. Tension is raising day after day. Administrative pressing, bribery of electorate and political accusations – it is made through the mass media, first of all. All Armenian PR workers, except for republicans, are acting to a universal principle: “criticize the authorities.” It is successfully used even by the parties which not so long used to be a part of the authorities – PA and Orinats Yerkir.
The public TV-channel hasn’t yet broadcast materials and reports blacking the opposition. Instead, a part of its airtime is devoted to the activity of the current capital mayor Taron Markaryan, who is a republican. It should be noted that in recent months the activity has become very intensive.
The TV-channel belonging to oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan, Kentron, gives a half of its air time to propaganda of Prosperous Armenia. The same is true for Dashnaktsutyn’s TV-cannel – Yerkir Media. The only difference is that these TV-channels show the audience all unpleasant sides of Yerevan’s life: dull faces of the citizens, holes in roads, broken pipelines, rubbish, and so on.
A peculiarity of the information campaign is bribery of the Armenian mass media, which surpassed all reasonable limits. Except for Yerkir Media and Kentron, all other Armenian channels are directly or indirectly sponsored by the governmental institutes, first of all RPA. So, political preferences of the Armenian TV mass media are clear.
The same can be said about electronic mass media. Except for Yerkir.am and Report.am which belong to Dashnaktsutyun, and informational sites zham.am, 7or.am, civilnet.am which belong to Prosperous Armenia, the rest of informational portals are working for the republicans. It became possible due to active and long-lasting activity of Mikael Minasyan – Serge Sargsyan’s son-in-law. Previously Minasyan has never taken state official positions. One of his main missions was organization and PR. Being protected by RPA and using his own financial abilities, President’s son-in-law has bought several major TV-channels. After this new information resources began to appear in Armenia.
Minasyan achieved great results in this field because this information policy was provided professionally, considered new realities, and modern information technologies. Thus, Armenian propaganda began to fulfill its mission on forming the desirable social discourse successfully.
As the result only the mass media controlled by ANC stayed free from the republican influence after the elections of 2008. These mass media heavily criticized the authorities and President, crossing limits of journalist ethics.
However, when ANC lost a major part of electorate and financing, these media began to change a political orientation. Today the majority of Armenian editorials are financed by the Republican Party, which directly influences their content. It seems we should have no doubts that on May 5th the current mayor of Yerevan Taron Markaryan and his team will “win” the elections.
