REPUBLICANS WIN MAJORITY IN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, CONTROVERSY ANTICIPATED
May 8, 2012
YEREVAN (A.W.)–In what will either be viewed as a memorable political
triumph or the start of an endless campaign of protests, the Republican
Party of Armenia claimed victory in the Armenian National Assembly
elections on May 6.
Scenes from the elections (photo by Aaron Spagnolo, The Armenian
Weekly) Although international news reports had predicted a win for
the Republicans, most leaders of the other political parties vying
for seats in the National Assembly had been anticipating a less than
highly favorable turnout for the ruling party.
According to data posted by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC)
the Republican Party of Armenia won by a landslide with 44 percent
of the vote, amounting to over 663,000 ballots in their favor. The
Prosperous Armenia Party came in at a distant second place with 30
percent, just short of 454,700 votes.
The Armenian National Congress, an opposition bloc composed of
numerous smaller, obscure political parties led by former president
Levon Ter-Petrossyan, barely passed the 7 percent minimum it needed
to win its first-ever presence in parliament.
Both ARF-Dashnaktsutyun and the Heritage/Free Democrats party alliance
managed to slide across the threshold needed for representation in
the National Assembly, with each earning approximately 5.7 percent
of the vote. The pro-government Country of Law (Orinats Yerkir)
also secured enough votes to retain its place.
The majority of the winning candidates in the 41 single-mandate
districts were Republicans. The others were from the Prosperous
Armenia Party and Country of Law. In the hotly contested race of the
7th electoral district, Nikol Pashinian, the firebrand editor of the
newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak representing the Congress lost to the
incumbent Republican oligarch Samvel Alexanyan, infamously known as
“Lfik Samo.” Alexanyan incidentally controls the monopoly on imports
of key foodstuffs into the country. Another independent parliamentary
hopeful and editor of the news daily 168 Zham, the glamorous Satik
Seyranyan, lost to her Republican challenger Artak Sargsyan, the
owner of a supermarket chain, in the 4th electoral district. In the
9th district, Levon Zourabyan, a prominent leader of the Congress
and confidant of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, likewise lost to a Republican
challenger.
Scenes from the elections (photo by Aaron Spagnolo, The Armenian
Weekly) Voter turnout was higher than expected, at around 62 percent
according to the CEC. Exactly 238 people living outside Armenia voted
electronically, the vast majority of them for the Republican Party.
The pre-election campaigning period was described as “competitive,
vibrant and largely peaceful” in the OSCE/ODIHR preliminary findings
issued Monday afternoon and similar wording was used in its interim
report published before the elections. Nevertheless, there were
reports of intimidation and beatings in the weeks leading up to the
elections. In early April an Armenian National Congress candidate
from the town of Armavir was forced to drop out of the race after
being attacked and his family threatened by individuals believed to
have been linked with his Republican rival.
Almost all of the violations cited in the OSCE/ODIHR report dated
April 27 were denied by the authorities. One particularly thorny issue
was the donation of tens of tractors to farmers in various regions
by the pro-government Prosperous Armenia Party, which denied being
involved in measures to gain votes. Also in Etchmiadzin and Yerevan’s
Arabkir district school teachers and their own students were obliged
to attend Republican party campaign rallies, an accusation party
officials strongly denied.
In the weeks before the elections some political groups, the Congress
in particular, claimed that as many as 700,000 individuals on the voter
lists were ineligible to vote, for reasons ranging from being absent
from the country to being deceased. The CEC was sharply criticized
by the opposition for being careless when preparing the lists.
Scenes from the elections (photo by Aaron Spagnolo, The Armenian
Weekly) The elections were marred by controversy not long after the
polls opened at 8 a.m.
There were several reports across the country of stamps made in
passports identifying an individual as having voted used with
disappearing ink, as was initially reported by Hetq Online. Before
placing a vote in the ballot box, a voter was required to have his or
her passport stamped and the ballot sealed. By mid morning updates
and photos appeared on Facebook only minutes after voters realized
that their stamps had vanished.
Hetq also reported that during the first eight hours of election day
151 calls were made to the Human Rights Defender with most complaints
about the stamps, long lines at stations or voters arriving in buses.
By 9:00 p.m., that number increased to 204.
Several incidents of suspicious behavior in the city district of
Achapniag were reported earlier by the Weekly.
Despite the reported problematic polling stations, the atmosphere at
many of Yerevan’s precincts, from Shengavit to Malatia to Arabkir,
was relatively calm and orderly. Yet at some stations there were
complaints made by people having to wait too long to enter and vote.
The average number of registered voters per district was around 1,800.
Police presence varied from as many as four officers assigned to a
single polling station to none. There was no discernable pattern of
logic to the number of officers made available at any given place.
At some polling stations suspicious activity was blatantly obvious. In
Erebuni’s precincts 13/32 and 13/33 on Nor Aresh Street in a primary
school, one minibus was parked around the corner, while three other
Gazelle minibuses assigned to route 62 waited out front (one of them
drove up curbside as this reporter was leaving the area.) Two of the
buses had a Republican Party flag hanging from the front side window.
Inside the precinct the scene was disorganized, with voters standing
around with no visible concrete line and mild commotion. There were
several suspicious loiterers out front along the sidewalk standing
close by expensive black SUVs. Just outside the door entering the
school one woman held two cellphones in her hands, texting with one
of them. This raised suspicion as one alleged method of vote buying
requires that a voter take a photo of the ballot with a provided
cellphone. No police were visible.
Scenes from the elections (photo by Aaron Spagnolo, The Armenian
Weekly) By contrast, at the station for precincts 13/22 and 13/23
on Erebuni Street only a mile away, all was calm and quiet out
front. Three officers were posted at each precinct where the line
entering the polls began. At 13/22 there was an argument apparently
about a voter being out of turn.
At late afternoon in the Aresh neighborhood of Erebuni at precincts
13/09 and 13/10 on Movses Khorenatsi Street four officers were seen
and an orderly line had been formed outside the door. There were
scores of people loitering outside the building, some exhibiting
dubious behavior. One man sitting in the far corner near the flight
of steps leading up to the station from the street was studying what
appeared to be a list several pages long while chatting with a group
of others standing around him, as if to offer protection. Ironically,
a police station is found directly across the street from building,
with a Republican party campaign office conveniently located only a few
doors down. This was the case in most districts, with a campaign office
of the ruling party either just down the road or around the block.
In presenting their findings on Monday afternoon the heads of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) elections
observation missions were critical of activities in polling stations
that hampered the smooth flow of the voting process. They indicated
that instances of proxies or observers from political parties becoming
involved in issues that were out of their scope to resolve.
“Some of the political parties who were observers in the polling
stations seemed to be less than constructive… apparently taking some
responsibilities that really belonged to the commission officials
in the polling stations,” said Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne,
the head of the PACE delegation.
“Armenia deserves recognition for its electoral reforms and its open
and peaceful campaign environment,” said Francois-Xavier de Donnea,
special coordinator for the OSCE short-term observer mission in a
press conference on Monday. “But in this race several stakeholders
too often failed to comply with the law, and election commissions too
often failed to enforce it. As a result, the international commitments
to which Armenia has freely subscribed were not always respected.”
De Donnea also called on the CEC to post the election results in
each polling district to raise the public’s confidence level in the
electoral process.
“The election campaign was open and fundamental freedoms were
respected,” said Radmila Å ekerinska, head of the OSCE/ODIHR Election
Observation Mission in her report. “In the course of the official
campaign the media offered broad and balanced coverage. Unfortunately,
this was overshadowed by concerns over the accuracy of the voter
lists and violations of the electoral code that created an unequal
playing field.”
The political parties challenging the Republicans were inconspicuously
quiet on Monday as the final polling results came in. Statements are
not expected to be made until sometime Tuesday, May 8.
The Armenian National Congress is scheduled to hold a protest on May
8. By the time of this report’s filing it was still unclear whether
ARF and the Prosperous Armenia Party would participate.
National Assembly member Vahan Hovhannisyan of the ARF had indicated
in the days just prior to the elections that the party would protest
the results in tandem with other political forces if the vote was
not deemed free and fair.
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/05/08/republicans-win-majority-in-national-assembly-controversy-anticipated/