Many political parties complain that if they buy a couple of posters for campaigning purposes they will have to spend all their resources. However, facts come to prove that they are not true.
To note, according to the RA Electoral Code, during the pre-election campaign period candidates can spend up to AMD 5 mln, and parties – up to AMD 60 mln. This money is enough for buying a lot of posters. For instance, you can pay AMD 60 mln and have 1034 advertising posters. In consideration of the fact that there are 41 precincts in Armenia, it will be enough for each party to have two posters in each precinct. To note, only 28 political parties have applied to the CEC to participate in the elections.
Many people are curious about the prices of advertising materials. Also, they like to calculate how much the political powers are spending on campaigning; for instance they calculated how much the ULP spent to attach a big poster during the Constitutional referendum on the walls of the Youth Palace building (24/27 meters).
We tried to ask the prices of posters from political powers to find out how much approximately they have spent on the posters that the streets are filled with. “Business Style” company is one of the main publishing companies and has the best technical equipments in the Middle East (in one hour they can print 150 cm). For instance, “The Armenian Republican Party” and “Prosperous Armenia Party” have placed orders at this company to print their posters since they say this company can print the posers fast and as well as the quality is better. In a word, this company helps them not to spend much time on publication.
The head of “Business Style” company, Alexander Hovsepyan says that they have different kinds of papers and can offer different prices. For instance, for printing one campaigning poster (3/6 meters, high quality) they ask 57. 600, i.e. AMD 3200 for one meter. The political powers that have lack of resources can print other posters on cheaper papers that are intended for attaching on walls in the streets and on windows of shops. Such posters cost about AMD 1400 for one meter. There are cheaper offers too. For example, many of them prefer “City” format posters (1. 20/1.80m.). These are small and effective posters with lights.
Opposition parties are concerned that these companies may not agree to accept their orders by saying that they are too busy. The chief of “Business Style” company assures that their technical equipments are more then enough to accept the demand of our market. “Our company can print 10 posters in one hour”, he said.
We asked Mr. Hovespyan whether they would accept an order that would include unacceptable expressions, to which he said, “We are working in compliance with the law, which does not allow any expressions harming the reputation of others. If the clients don’t violate this law we will accept their orders for sure. However, there haven’t been such cases so far”. The same thing concerns photos as well. We asked what if someone wants to print the president’s photo on a poster, to which Mr. Hovsepyan said, “They have to obtain permission from that person, i.e. in the given case from the president”, said A. Hovsepyan.