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Armenia Gears Up For De-Ideologized Election
Supporters of the Prosperous Armenia party attend an election campaign
rally in Yerevan on May 3.
http://www.rferl.org/content/armenia_gears_up_for_de-ideologized_election/24570864.html
May 05, 2012
It has become progressively clearer during the four-week campaign
preceding the Armenian parliamentary elections on May 6 that the main
campaign issue is not the political, economic, or foreign-policy
choices the country faces, but the actual conduct of the election
itself.
Instead of focusing primarily on their party programs, candidates from
the seven parties and one bloc competing with President Serzh
Sarkisian's Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) have accused both the
HHK and its coalition partner, Prosperous Armenia (BH) of seeking to
influence the outcome by either the use of "administrative resources"
or the distribution of financial and material incentives.
Much media coverage of the campaign too has focused on whether and how
the HHK and BH can and will use the considerable resources at their
disposal to illegally augment their share of the vote. Meanwhile,
election campaign posters on the streets of Yerevan are few and far
between.
In campaign speeches across the country, President Sarkisian has
repeatedly pledged to ensure the vote is the most democratic in
Armenia's recent history, in order to facilitate the formation of a
government that would enjoy popular trust.
Responding to allegations that thousands of additional names have been
added to electoral rolls to enable the ruling party to inflate the
number of ballots cast for it, HHK spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov
similarly assured RFE/RL's Armenian Service that "the authorities will
exclude any undemocratic and illegal manifestation during the
elections.... We will do everything to make these elections normal and
democratic."
The police department responsible for maintaining voter lists claims
to have reviewed and checked the voter lists to remove the names of
some 2,000 persons deceased or no longer resident in Armenia. It later
gave the total number of registered voters as 2,482,238.
But former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, who is second on the BH
list of candidates competing for the 90 parliament mandates
distributed under the proportional system, has called into question
the accuracy of the revised lists. He said last week BH had already
detected "tens of thousands of inaccuracies" in the electoral rolls,
including bogus voters with the same date of birth simultaneously
registered at multiple electoral districts under slightly altered
names.
Levon Zurabian, a prominent member of former President Levon
Ter-Petrossian's Armenian National Congress (HAK), pointed to an
"abnormally" large number of households with 10 or more registered
voters. He said HAK campaigners had also detected voters listed as
residents of nonexistent or abandoned apartments buildings in Yerevan.
In a bid to verify that the number of votes actually cast corresponds
to the officially proclaimed turnout figure, BH, together with the HAK
and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun (HHD), has
formally asked the Constitutional Court to annul the legal prohibition
on publishing after the election the names of those persons who
actually voted. The three parties joined forces last month to create
an Inter-Party Center for Public Oversight of the Elections that
intends to fight electoral fraud. The court is to consider their
request on May 5.
Claims Of Vote-Buying
A second focus of opposition parties' shared apprehension is the
anticipated recourse by the ruling party to vote-buying, primarily by
wealthy businessmen running on the HHK ticket. (Ter-Petrossian
indicated last week that the going rate is 5,000 drams, or $12.76).
President Sarkisian has issued explicit instructions to prosecutors to
combat vote-buying, which he described as "a negative phenomenon that
casts a shadow on the legitimacy of any election."
HHK spokesman Sharmazanov has categorically denied that his party
seeks to "buy" votes in exchange for cash sums or the provision of
services. At the same time, Sharmazanov defended the right of
individual party members who head charitable foundations to engage in
charitable activities, providing they do not violate the law.
The fine line between benevolent activity and soliciting votes for
material gain is on occasion a subjective one, however. It can and
frequently is deliberately blurred by election participants seeking to
discredit rival political parties. Spokesmen for BH Chairman Gagik
Tsarukian, one of Armenia's wealthiest businessmen, have repeatedly
denied media allegations in recent weeks that the distribution of
dozens of tractors in rural districts by a company Tsarukian owns
constitutes attempted vote-buying.
Armenia's human rights ombudsman, Karen Andreassian, predicted in
early April that the actual voting on May 6 would not be marred by
large-scale fraud. He did not, however, exclude the possibility of
unspecified "pressure" on voters on polling day.
The assessments of the previous three Armenian parliamentary elections
(in 1999, 2003, and 2007) by the OSCE's Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights all differentiate between the relatively
unproblematic and fair process of voting and far more serious
violations during the vote count and tabulation. BH, as a member of
the three-party body set up to combat fraud, plans to install video
cameras in all of Armenia's 2,000 polling stations on election day to
record both the voting and the vote count. "We consider this a very
important oversight mechanism," Naira Zohrabian, who represents BH in
the outgoing parliament and is running for reelection, told RFE/RL's
Armenian Service.
Supporters of the Prosperous Armenia party attend an election campaign
rally in Yerevan on May 3.
http://www.rferl.org/content/armenia_gears_up_for_de-ideologized_election/24570864.html
May 05, 2012
It has become progressively clearer during the four-week campaign
preceding the Armenian parliamentary elections on May 6 that the main
campaign issue is not the political, economic, or foreign-policy
choices the country faces, but the actual conduct of the election
itself.
Instead of focusing primarily on their party programs, candidates from
the seven parties and one bloc competing with President Serzh
Sarkisian's Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) have accused both the
HHK and its coalition partner, Prosperous Armenia (BH) of seeking to
influence the outcome by either the use of "administrative resources"
or the distribution of financial and material incentives.
Much media coverage of the campaign too has focused on whether and how
the HHK and BH can and will use the considerable resources at their
disposal to illegally augment their share of the vote. Meanwhile,
election campaign posters on the streets of Yerevan are few and far
between.
In campaign speeches across the country, President Sarkisian has
repeatedly pledged to ensure the vote is the most democratic in
Armenia's recent history, in order to facilitate the formation of a
government that would enjoy popular trust.
Responding to allegations that thousands of additional names have been
added to electoral rolls to enable the ruling party to inflate the
number of ballots cast for it, HHK spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov
similarly assured RFE/RL's Armenian Service that "the authorities will
exclude any undemocratic and illegal manifestation during the
elections.... We will do everything to make these elections normal and
democratic."
The police department responsible for maintaining voter lists claims
to have reviewed and checked the voter lists to remove the names of
some 2,000 persons deceased or no longer resident in Armenia. It later
gave the total number of registered voters as 2,482,238.
But former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, who is second on the BH
list of candidates competing for the 90 parliament mandates
distributed under the proportional system, has called into question
the accuracy of the revised lists. He said last week BH had already
detected "tens of thousands of inaccuracies" in the electoral rolls,
including bogus voters with the same date of birth simultaneously
registered at multiple electoral districts under slightly altered
names.
Levon Zurabian, a prominent member of former President Levon
Ter-Petrossian's Armenian National Congress (HAK), pointed to an
"abnormally" large number of households with 10 or more registered
voters. He said HAK campaigners had also detected voters listed as
residents of nonexistent or abandoned apartments buildings in Yerevan.
In a bid to verify that the number of votes actually cast corresponds
to the officially proclaimed turnout figure, BH, together with the HAK
and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun (HHD), has
formally asked the Constitutional Court to annul the legal prohibition
on publishing after the election the names of those persons who
actually voted. The three parties joined forces last month to create
an Inter-Party Center for Public Oversight of the Elections that
intends to fight electoral fraud. The court is to consider their
request on May 5.
Claims Of Vote-Buying
A second focus of opposition parties' shared apprehension is the
anticipated recourse by the ruling party to vote-buying, primarily by
wealthy businessmen running on the HHK ticket. (Ter-Petrossian
indicated last week that the going rate is 5,000 drams, or $12.76).
President Sarkisian has issued explicit instructions to prosecutors to
combat vote-buying, which he described as "a negative phenomenon that
casts a shadow on the legitimacy of any election."
HHK spokesman Sharmazanov has categorically denied that his party
seeks to "buy" votes in exchange for cash sums or the provision of
services. At the same time, Sharmazanov defended the right of
individual party members who head charitable foundations to engage in
charitable activities, providing they do not violate the law.
The fine line between benevolent activity and soliciting votes for
material gain is on occasion a subjective one, however. It can and
frequently is deliberately blurred by election participants seeking to
discredit rival political parties. Spokesmen for BH Chairman Gagik
Tsarukian, one of Armenia's wealthiest businessmen, have repeatedly
denied media allegations in recent weeks that the distribution of
dozens of tractors in rural districts by a company Tsarukian owns
constitutes attempted vote-buying.
Armenia's human rights ombudsman, Karen Andreassian, predicted in
early April that the actual voting on May 6 would not be marred by
large-scale fraud. He did not, however, exclude the possibility of
unspecified "pressure" on voters on polling day.
The assessments of the previous three Armenian parliamentary elections
(in 1999, 2003, and 2007) by the OSCE's Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights all differentiate between the relatively
unproblematic and fair process of voting and far more serious
violations during the vote count and tabulation. BH, as a member of
the three-party body set up to combat fraud, plans to install video
cameras in all of Armenia's 2,000 polling stations on election day to
record both the voting and the vote count. "We consider this a very
important oversight mechanism," Naira Zohrabian, who represents BH in
the outgoing parliament and is running for reelection, told RFE/RL's
Armenian Service.