WESTERN OBSERVERS GIVE MIXED ASSESSMENT OF ARMENIAN POLL CONDUCT
Emil Danielyan
07.05.2012
Armenia – Senior European election observers start a joint news
conference in Yerevan, 7 May 2012.
International observers gave a mixed assessment of Armenia’s
parliamentary elections on Monday, praising the pre-election
environment in the country but reporting irregularities in a
“significant number” of polling stations on voting day.
In their preliminary findings that clearly fell short of the Armenian
government’s expectations, the nearly 300 observers mostly deployed by
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) avoided
stating whether the vote was democratic.
“Armenia deserves recognition for its electoral reforms and its open
and peaceful campaign environment but in this race several
stakeholders too often failed to comply with the law and election
commissions too often failed to enforce it,” said Francois-Xavier de
Donnea, a Belgian parliamentarian who led head short-term OSCE
monitors. “As a result, the international commitments to which Armenia
has freely subscribed were not always respected.”
“The election campaign was open and respected fundamental freedoms,
and the media offered broad and balanced coverage during the official
campaign period,” said Radmila Sekerinska, an observer mission leader
representing the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human
Rights (ODIHR).
Representatives of smaller monitoring teams deployed by the European
Parliament and the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE)
agreed with this conclusion. Emma Nicholson, who led the 27-strong
PACE team, expressed concern over “reports of widespread interference
with the running of polling stations, voters’ movement and casting of
votes throughout the day by certain political parties.”
Armenia Francois-Xavier de Donnea, head of a short-term election
monitoring mission deployed by the OSCE, at a news conference in
Yerevan, 7May2012.xArmenia Francois-Xavier de Donnea, head of a
short-term election monitoring mission deployed by the OSCE, at a news
conference in Yerevan, 7May2012.
â~@~Kâ~@~K”The authorities must address this unacceptable behavior before the
presidential election next year,” Nicholson told a joint news
conference with de Donnea and Sekerinska.
The observers’ joint preliminary report on Sunday’s election similarly
refers to “undue interference” in the voting process, presumably by
activists of pro-government parties, among various violations. “While
opening procedures were assessed positively in almost all polling
stations observed, voting was assessed negatively in 10 per cent,
which is considerable,” says the report. “Unauthorized people, mostly
proxies, interfered in or directed the work of 12 per cent of the
[precinct election commissions] observed,” it adds.
The observers assessed “negatively” ballot counting in almost
one-fifth of the observed polling stations. “Unauthorized people
participated in one in four counts observed,” they said.
“International observers reported isolated cases of serious
violations, such as falsification of results or protocols (four cases)
or indications that ballot box stuffing had occurred earlier (five
cases).”
The observer did not to clarify whether it thinks these and other
reported violations influenced official vote results that gave a
landslide victory to President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of
Armenia (HHK).
“It is not only outside of our mandate to comment on this, but it’s
really technically difficult to assess whether these kinds of
deficiencies or irregularities have changed the opinion of the
voters,” said Sekerinska.
Vote buying was the principal fraud allegation voiced by the Armenian
opposition even before the closure of the polls on Sunday evening.
In Sekerinska’s words, it was “very difficult” for the mainly Western
observers to verify the vote buying claims. “Even people who have
claimed that they were part of a vote buying scheme decided not to
come forward with information and personal declarations,” she
explained.
Opposition leaders also cried foul after it emerged on Sunday morning
that ink stamps meant to guard against multiple voting routinely
disappeared after being put on voters’ passports. The observer’s
report notes in this regard that the special ink used for the
procedure “should have remained visible for 12 hours but faded much
faster.”
Armenia’s previous legislative polls held in May 2007 were judged by a
similar OSCE-led mission to have been held “largely in accordance with
international standards for democratic elections.” Western monitors
gave a similar assessment of the Armenian presidential election of
February 2008, which was marred by fraud allegations and a deadly
government crackdown on the opposition.
The Armenian authorities have made no secret of their hopes to secure
an even more positive international verdict on the latest vote.
President Sarkisian and other top officials have repeatedly pledged to
do their best to hold the most democratic election in the country’s
history.
The observers were clearly more critical of the authorities’ election
conduct this time around, however. When asked to sum up their
findings, de Donnea said, “In some areas, these elections are better
than the previous ones. In other areas, there is status quo and a
potential for improvement. In other areas, there might be a setback
and also a greater potential for improvement.”
http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/24573245.html