Author: Kalantarian Kevo

Former Presidential Candidate: “Just the latest round of fake elections”
Sona Avagyan

18:42, May 5, 2013

Former presidential candidate Andreas Ghoukasyan told Hetq that the
ruling Republican Party had won today’s Yerevan municipal elections at
the very moment the other parties agreed to participate without any of
them disputing the right of the ruling party to take part.

`It is apparent to all that the Republican Party is involved in voter
fraud and a sponsor of corruption. Thus, when the opposition
recognizes the right of such a political force to enter the election
they have already lost,’ said Ghoukasyan.

Nevertheless, Ghoukasyan said he would be exercising his right to vote
given that only when citizens defend their ballot could anything
change, adding that the authorities are doing everything to convince
citizen’s that the right to vote isn’t all that important.

`This is just the latest round of fake elections that are destroying
the country and leading to the loss of independence. If the people do
not attempt to change the course of events, to resist this situation
where we concede our right to vote to others, to outside forces and to
internal criminal gangs, then we will lose that value which we have
achieved historically, our independence and sovereignty,’ he argued.

“Passport merry-go-round” is innovation of municipal elections

ARMINFO
Sunday, May 5, 18:33

Electoral fraudsters have invented a new way to rig the elections to
the Elders’ Council of Yerevan.

The hotline of ARF Dashnaktsutyun Party reports that at the polling
station located at a school in Silikyan Street the voters give their
passports to strangers, who vote by these passports and return them
with money. Unfortunately, the hotline does not specify which of the
parties has invented the “passport merry-go-round”.

Agence France Presse
May 4, 2013 Saturday 1:06 PM GMT

Football: Shirak Gyumri win Armenian title

YEREVAN, May 04 2013

Shirak Gyumri won their fourth Armenian title following a 1-0 win over
Pyunik Yerevan on Friday.

The result gave Shirak an unassailable eight-point lead over
second-placed Mika Yerevan with just two matches remaining.

Shirak also won the national title in 1992, 1994 and 1999.

Pianist Hayk Melikyan to perform with Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra

19:34, 5 May, 2013

YEREVAN, MAY 5, ARMENPRESS: The pianist Hayk Melikyan will perform
with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert will be held on
May 17 at the Aram Khachaturyan Concert Hall.

As Armenpress was informed by the Press Service of the Armenian
Philharmonic Orchestra, during the concert the following works will be
performed: `Concert for Piano’ of Alfred Schnittke, `Symphony No. 5′
of Jivan Ter-Tadevosyan and `An American in Paris’ of George Gershwin.
The concert will be conducted by Ruben Asatryan.

Yerevan Mayoral Election Could Be The Most Shameful Election Ever

Deputy Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov is the head of the Republican
campaign headquarters, so he, as well as the head of the Central
Electoral Commission is responsible for the shameful conduct of the
local election.

Most probably, a decision was made to return to the tough methods
after the presidential election when Raffi Hovannisian unexpectedly
received 37%, and Serzh Sargsyan lost the election in a number of
towns.

After the parliamentary election the RPA had to give up the method of
vote buying through their local representatives because the
representatives either misappropriated the money or the voters
accepted the money but voted for others. They tried to get back the
money from their local representatives.

During the presidential election a `civilized’ money method was used.
They gave money to people who stuffed ballots. However, this tactics
was not effective either because in most polling stations the proxies,
observers, even members of commissions did not allow ballot stuffing.

Now they have apparently decided to reapply the good old method of
buying a vote at the entry of the polling station on the condition
that the voter proves which candidate he or she voted for.

Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center has made a map of
violations, and the map is already covered with tags. TI has been
active in Armenia. Videos were produced which display the nature of
corrupt property of Armenian officials. It has even applied to the
Prosecutor General’s Office demanding to check the legality of the
property of the head of SRC Gagik Khachatryan. Before the election
this organization collected signatures for a petition to publish
voters’ lists after the elections. After the elections TI and some of
its partners will dispute the results of elections.

This election could be the most shameful election in the history of
Armenia. Hundreds of reports of electoral fraud have been received
since morning. In the result, however, it will become known that the
irregularities have not affected the final outcome.

Naira Hayrumyan
16:53 05/05/2013
Story from Lragir.am News:

Vahagn Khachatryan: Yerevan will grow into the beautiful city of our dreams
16:18 05.05.2013

Aida Khachatryan
`Radiolur’

`The power should belong to citizens,’ said Vahagn Khachatryan, who
heads the proportional list of the Armenian National Congress. Today
he cast his vote at polling station #8/17.

`I’m confident Yerevan will finally become the most beautiful city we
all dream of,’ Khachatryan told reporters, adding that the word
`beautiful’ refers not only to the appearance of the city, but also to
the quality of life and human relations.

Khachatryan said they have received reports on election frauds and his
party is applying to respective bodies.

`I’m confident Yerevan will turn into the beautiful city of our
dreams, and no one will want to leave it,’ he said.

Vartan Oskanian: We will do everything possible for election results
to be close to people’s expectations

13:30 05/05/2013 » POLITICS

Vartan Oskanian, former Armenian Foreign Minister, number one
candidate of Prosperous Armenia Party, was the 212nd voter at 9/24
polling station. He came to the polls with Prosperous Armenia Party
spokesman Tigran Urikhanyan.

`I voted for the country’s future,’ Oskanian told reporters after
casting his ballot.

He added that Prosperous Armenia continues to work with other parties
and exchange information with them. `We will do everything possible to
reduce to a minimum violations at polling stations for the election
results to be close to the people’s expectations as far as possible,’
he said.

Source: Panorama.am

Members of Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) rule out setting up of
coalition with RPA

ARMINFO
Sunday, May 5, 14:22

Secretary of the PAP parliamentary faction, Naira Zohrabyan, told
ArmInfo correspondent that she rules out setting up of a coalition
with the ruling RPA.

“Moreover, I have voiced not only my personal position but also the
viewpoint of the PAP in general”, – she said.

To note, today Armenian Parliament Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan did not
rule out possible coalition of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia
(RPA) and Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) at the Elders’ Council of
Yerevan.

In response to the given question yet a day ago, Abrahamyan ruled out
possibility of consolidation of RPA and PAP. In the meanwhile, Deputy
Head of the RPA, Acting Minister of Education and Science Armen
Ashotyan was the first today to forecast possible alliance of the two
parties. “I don’t rule out a new coalition of RPA and PAP, though I
would not like it to happen,” Ashotyan said.

After the parliamentary elections of 2007 PAP joined the ruling
coalition with the RPA. By the parliamentary elections of 2012, PAP
has gradually re-oriented towards ‘opposition’ and came out as
opposition at the elections. However, PAP did not participate in the
presidential election of 2013. The party intensified activity on the
threshold of elections to the Elders’ Council of Yerevan as an
opposition force.

Armenia-Diaspora Election Monitoring Mission: First of its Kind

Saturday, May 4th, 2013

The local-Diaspora monitoring mission prepares for Yerevan municipal
elections on Sunday, May 5

BY URSULA KAZARIAN

In an unprecedented effort, approximately 100 Diasporans, both
visiting and repatriated, as well as local Armenians and non-Armenian
expats, have been working with approximately 160 election observers
from civil society organizations such as Transparency International,
and Asparez Press Club, Gyumri, to monitor the upcoming Yerevan
municipal elections this Sunday, May 5th.

On Election Day, the observers will be at polling stations across
Yerevan and will document, record, and videotape any fraudulent
activity that may take place, such as ballot box stuffing, multiple
voting, attempted bribery, and voter intimidation.

The group will be providing Diaspora media outlets with information in
real-time that we encourage you to follow. Watch for updates from
observation mission team members on Election Day, May 5th.

Also, visit and `like’ the Yerevan Media Center Facebook page to keep
up with the latest news directly from the observers in the polling
stations. And of course continue to get updates from Asbarez.

Motivativation
This undertaking was inspired in part by Diasporan Narine Esmaeili,
who witnessed systemic fraud during the Armenian presidential election
in February.

Following the election, Esmaeili reported that she had been physically
assaulted and threatened by polling station officials when she
attempted to protest violations of Armenia’s Electoral Code as they
happened. According to a video interview in which Esmaeli recounted
her experience, she had witnessed a group of 25-30 men walk into the
station and surround the ballot box.

When she protested, Esmaeili says one of the men in the group pushed
her against a wall and pinned her there with her hands pressed
together, while polling station officials cut open the ballot box seal
and allowed one of the men from the group to pour in a bag full of
marked ballots. Later, local police officers arrived at the polling
station and told Esmaeili to be a `good girl’ and not to talk to the
media. Watch Esmaeli’s full video testimony here.

Despite these and other observer reports of egregious violations of
the Electoral Code, the international observation mission
rubber-stamped the election as generally `well-administered’ and
`characterized by a respect for fundamental freedoms.’

The formal statement was met with heavy public criticism, and some
individual observers strongly disagreed with the main findings. As
OSCE mission observer Dermot Ahern said:

`I’ve been a practicing politician here in Ireland for 32 years,
contesting and winning every election I personally fought in. I was
director of [the] elections board at [the] national and local level[s]
for my party. I have never witnessed anything like this. From my
experience, I know a trend when I see one, and something very strange
happened to overturn the result.’

Civic Response
Bolstered by the overwhelming evidence of widespread, massive fraud
during the presidential elections, the local-Diaspora monitoring
mission has trained a total of 250 volunteers to observe the May 5th
Yerevan elections. The group believes that a well-organized and
well-trained election observation mission is critical to prove claims
of fraud and associated criminal activity.

The local-Diaspora monitoring partnership believes that widespread
media coverage of live observation reports from the precincts is
crucial in attracting strong public support to hold authorities
accountable for the accuracy and veracity of the official election
results. In addition to training with the local observation missions,
the Yerevan-based Diaspora team is working with Diaspora media outlets
to provide reliable updates in real-time.

This Diaspora observation mission will also serve as a foundation and
learning experience for its organizers, who intend to coordinate
similar missions in future elections. A positive reception of this
effort will fuel greater local-Diaspora cooperation in the future
towards the common goal of strengthening the democratic process in
Armenia.

The result of this coordinated effort will necessarily inform the
structure and nature of grassroots Diaspora assistance in the future.
It is therefore important to follow the activities of this pioneer
group, not only during the election, but also in the subsequent days
and weeks, in order to fully ascertain the added value that
coordinated Diaspora assistance may provide to the overall impact of
the mission.

Robert Kechichian
Les Nouvelles d’Arménie : un exemple de presse

Mars 2013 à Paris, début du mois. Temps gris. Ciel nuageux et bas. Sur
ma droite, quelques voitures, sur ma gauche, les eaux du canal
Saint-Martin ont pris une couleur sale. Je cours… Les pavés
disjoints font souffrir mes chevilles… j’ai le souffle court… je
transpire légèrement… j’ai hte d’arriver… je dois tenir bon. Un
chien sans laisse et apparemment sans maître se joint à moi dans ma
course, il est heureux, plus en forme que je ne le suis. Quel ge de
chien et quel ge d’homme ? Surement plus jeune que moi. L’écluse des
morts, dépassée… le pont Eugène Varlin, dépassé… La boulangerie,
dépassée… le restaurant au robinet d’or, dépassé…. Enfin, les
portes de mon immeuble… Le chien s’est arrêté avec moi, il me
regarde. Je compose le code. Un coup de sifflet, il se retourne et
court à grande vitesse vers une jeune femme aux cheveux noirs et
frisés, elle est belle, séduisante et pleine de vie. Le chien lui fait
la fête, elle m’envoie un baiser de la main et s’éloigne, le chien à
ses côtés. Jusqu’ici tout va bien, c’est un début de journée et de
mois normal. Reste une chose à accomplir avant de regagner mon chez
moi, notre chez nous… Je rentre dans le hall, j’ouvre ma boite aux
lettres. Je fouille de la main, je fouille encore cette boite, je suis
fébrile… elle est vide, désespérément vide… Ce n’est plus une
journée normale, C’est une journée de frustration, je m’attendais à
trouver, comme à chaque début de mois, un magazine. Déjà hier, il
n’était pas là, encore moins avant-hier, c’était dimanche. Nous sommes
le 5 mars, que se passe-t-il NAM ? Je suis inquiet, très inquiet NAM,
tu viens vers moi chaque mois, depuis 20 ans… 20 ans déjà que je te
lis, que je me nourris, que je me vis de toi, mon Arménité, ma
Francité. Et bien que tu sois passé du papier rustique de ta jeunesse,
de tes articles fougueux, et de tes appels au combat pour que justice
soit rendue à la Nation arménienne toute entière, à ce magazine au
papier glacé presque luxueux, je peux dire que tu ne t’es jamais dédit
de ta mission, informer et encore informer sur la situation de notre
peuple en France, comme en République d’Arménie, comme dans le monde.
Ton indépendance éditoriale, tes analyses, la qualité de tes articles
t’honorent, Ils ont fait de toi un des meilleurs magazines de France.
Nous pouvons être fiers des NAM, hommage et résurrection pour tous les
journaux arméniens disparus. Un exemple de presse ! Bon anniversaire
NAM que Dieu te prête vie comme à tous ceux, qui depuis l’origine
jusqu’à aujourd’hui, ont fait de toi ce cordon ombilical indispensable
à mon histoire, cette artère de sang de mon Arménité.
PS : Ne me fais plus attendre NAM, c’est insupportable, je veux te
lire dès demain.

dimanche 5 mai 2013,
Spidermian ©armenews.com Ara ©armenews.com