Both Individual And Party-List Election Systems Blighted by Bribery

BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND PARTY-LIST ELECTION SYSTEMS BLIGHTED BY BRIBERY

A1 Plus
01-10-2004

On Friday, Dashnaktsutyun party member Armen Rustamyan, speaking at a
news conference in Armenpress news agency, explained why his party
supports the idea of the idea of filling National Assembly’s all seats
only through party lists.

`All of us witnessed how those candidates running for
parliamentaryseats in individual races won the election thanks to
bribes’, he said.

Our correspondent asked him wasn’t he aware of cases of so called
auction in that system of election. Hasn’t he heard that the seat in
the list cost from 200 to 500 thousand USD? `We know all about that’,
the answer was.

Rustamyan’s fellow partisan Levon Lazarian added: `If a party tries
to come to parliament with such kind of peoples, it will have its
rating fallen by the next elections’.

Levon Lazarian is sure party-list parliamentary election system will
promote political field development. It is worth to be reminded that
Dashnaks were giving gas meters to voters in their office during
election campaign at thelast elections.