Author: Kanayan Tamar

Joint headquarter controlling over elections in Armenia to continue cooperation

news.am
May 06, 2012 | 23:40

YEREVAN. – Joint headquarter controlling over parliamentary elections
released a statement claiming the necessity to continue joint efforts
on the election process, appeals and organizing re-counting.

`The inter-party joint headquarter has published the regular statement
recently. It claims, in particular, that the highly untrustworthy
results of the elections only deepen suspicions on legally held
elections.

The joint headquarter believes it necessary to continue joint efforts
on election process, appeals, as well as organizing re-counting,’ the
statement was presented by the ARF Dashnaktsutyun Mp candidate Armen
Rustamyan.

Eight political parties and one bloc participated in the parliament
elections in Armenia: Republican Party of Armenian, Prosperous Armenia
Party, Orinats Yerkir, Armenian National Congress, Heritage Party, ARF
Dashnaktsutyun, the Communist Party of Armenia, Democratic Party of
Armenia and United Armenians Party. For entering a 131-seat National
Assembly (Parliament), parties must poll over 5% of votes, while blocs
– over 7%.

Chicago Tribune, IL
May 5 2012

Factbox: Armenia’s parliamentary election

YEREVAN (Reuters) – Armenia votes on Sunday in a parliamentary
election. Here are some key facts about the former Soviet republic and
main contenders in the upcoming election.

MAIN CONTENDERS IN ELECTION: President Serzh Sarksyan’s Republican
Party, the Prosperous Armenia party led by businessman Gagik
Tsarukyan, the Armenian National Congress – a diverse coalition of
radical opposition groups led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan,
the Dashnaktsutiun Party, the Country of Law Party; the moderate
opposition Heritage Party.

Opinion polls show the Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia will
win more than 60 percent of the votes between them, signaling little
or no change in government.

Eight parties and one party bloc are registered for the proportional
component of the election, and 155 candidates are registered in the 41
single-mandate constituencies.

OBSERVERS – More than 300 international observers from the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as well as
about 25,000 local observers will monitor the poll.

KEY FACTS

POPULATION – 3.3 million as of May 2012, according to the National
Statistics Service. Central Election Commission says there are about
2.5 million eligible voters in the country.

GEOGRAPHY – Landlocked, bordering Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and
Turkey, Armenia covers an area of 29,800 square km (11,500 square
miles). The capital is Yerevan.

Armenia is locked in a dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan over the
tiny region of Nagorno-Karabakh, over which they fought a war in the
1990s.

Armenia also has fraught relations with Turkey, in part because Ankara
does not recognize as genocide the killing of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey during World War One.

ECONOMY – The Armenian economy grew 4.6 percent in 2011, recovering
from the 2008-09 global crisis, which resulted in a 14.2 percent
contraction in 2009. The IMF forecasts 3.8 percent growth in 2012.
Inflation fell to 4.7 percent in 2011 from 9.4 percent in 2010, while
the fiscal deficit fell below 3 percent in 2011 from 8 percent in
2009.

(Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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EMG.rs, Serbia
May 6 2012

France, Greece, Serbia, Armenia vote in crucial elections

Four European nations – France, Greece, Serbia, and Armenia – are
holding Sunday, May 6, 2012, crucial elections.

Four European nations – France, Greece, Serbia, and Armenia – are
holding Sunday, May 6, 2012, crucial elections.

France: Anti-Sarkozy Vote?

In France, incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy is facing his Socialist
challenger, Francois Hollande in the run-off of the French
Presidential Elections, with Sarkozy trailing Hollande by 6 percentage
points in polls Friday.

After eight other candidates were eliminated in the first round on
April 22, Hollande has led Sarkozy in every poll conducted throughout
the campaign.

Hollande, after gaining the endorsement of centrist Francois Bayrou,
who had won 9.1% in the first round two weeks ago, urged voters to
give him enough support so that he can act when he takes office and
not be “a hobbled victor.”

Hollande has promised to renegotiate the European Union’s “fiscal
pact,” which sets tight budget rules, and he called for a “growth
pact” to stimulate stagnant economies and add new jobs.

The choice that French people make will affect France and the European
Union and its attempts to manage the eurozone debt crisis. France is
also a permanent U.N. Security Council member and nuclear power and
has troops on missions abroad, from Afghanistan to Congo.

Greece: Debt-ridden Disillusionment

Debt-ridden Greece is voting Sunday in its first general elections
since in the Socialist Cabinet of George Papandreou stepped down in
the fall of 2011 to make way for a caretaker Cabinet.

Thus, Greeks began voting at 7 a.m. local time (0400 GMT, 12 a.m. EDT)
in their most critical election in decades, with voters set to punish
the two main parties that are being held responsible for the country’s
dire economic straits.

32 parties vie for the votes of nearly 10 million registered voters.
Such is the disillusionment with the socialist PASOK party and
conservative New Democracy, which have been alternating in power for
the last 38 years, that neither is expected to garner enough votes to
form a government, reports say.

Days of wrangling over forming a coalition will likely ensue, with the
prospect – alarming to Greece’s lenders and much of the country’s
population – of another round of elections if they fail.

Serbia: EU Integration Test

Former ultra-nationalist allies of Slobodan Milosevic may return to
power in Serbia, 12 years after the late Balkan strongman was ousted
by pro-Western forces seeking EU membership, international media
report, raising alarm.

The first-round vote on Sunday for Serbian president, and votes for a
250-seat national assembly and local councils, pit pro-EU democrats
against nationalists. The two leading contenders are the Democratic
Party of recent president Boris Tadic and Milosevic’s former ally
Tomislav Nikolic, of the right-wing populist Serbian Progressive
Party.

A presidential run-off is expected on May 20, as both Tadic and
Nikolic are unlikely to get more than 50% of the first-round vote that
includes 12 candidates.

Incumbent President Tadic has urged Serbs to vote for him for the sake
of their country’s EU integration.

Armenia: Democracy Test

Voters in Armenia have begun casting ballots in parliamentary
elections seen as a crucial test of the nation’s stated commitment to
democracy.

Ninety seats in the 131-member National Assembly are being contested
in a proportional vote by nine political forces, including eight
parties and one bloc. Another 41 parliament seats are up for grabs in
single-mandate elections in as many constituencies contested by a
total of 139 candidates on the first-past-the-post basis.

As has repeatedly been stated by Armenia’s international partners,
including the European Union and the United States, and has been
acknowledged by the Armenian leadership, the May 6 polls put on the
line the nation’s broader democratic credentials. Virtually all
general elections held in Armenia during its two decades of
independence have been flawed and fallen short of international
democratic standards.

Opinion polls suggest that Armenian Preisdent Serzh Sarkisian’s
Republican party, which currently has a parliamentary majority, is
ahead of its ally in the outgoing coalition – the Prosperous Armenia
party led by millionaire tycoon and former arm-wrestler Gagik
Tsarukian – with opposition parties trailing behind.

Chicago Tribune, IL
May 6 2012

Armenia hopes for calm election, democratic result

Margarita Antidze and Hasmik Lazarian
Reuters
1:48 a.m. CDT, May 6, 2012

YEREVAN (Reuters) – Armenian voters headed to the polls on Sunday for
a parliamentary election its leaders hope will bolster stability and
be free of the fraud and violence that marred the South Caucasus
country’s last national election.

The biggest parties in the coalition government, President Serzh
Sarksyan’s Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia led by businessman
Gagik Tsarukyan, are expected to remain the strongest in the former
Soviet republic of 3.3 million.

“All I want is a calm election…I voted for the Republicans, because
I want the government and the president to continue reforms,” Susana
Arakelyan, a 73-year-old pensioner, told Reuters after casting her
ballot at a polling station in central Yerevan.

Voting will last until 8.00 p.m. (4.00 p.m. GMT).

Sarksyan has promised a fair election, portraying the vote as a break
from the past in a country that hankers for stability in order to
boost the economy, devastated by a war with neighboring Azerbaijan in
the 1990s and then hit by the 2008-09 global financial crisis.

“We have managed to turn the political fight into a fair competition,”
he told supporters during campaigning in the mountainous and
landlocked country which has found prosperity elusive since winning
independence from the Soviet Union.

The poll will be monitored by more than 300 international observers
from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
which said the last parliamentary election in 2007 fell short of
international standards.

A blast at a campaign rally injured about 150 people on Friday,
raising fears of a repeat of the violence that killed 10 people after
the 2008 presidential election, but emergency officials said it was
caused by gas-filled balloons exploding.

The violence in 2008, when eight opposition protesters and two police
officers were killed in clashes, dealt a severe blow to the country’s
democratic credentials.

Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Centre in
Yerevan, said Sunday’s election was a test of the credibility of the
president and government and “an opportunity for the Armenian
president to move beyond the legacy of March 2008 once and for all.”

OIL AND GAS TRANSIT ROUTE

Armenia nestles high in the mountains of a region that is emerging as
an important transit route for oil and gas exports from the Caspian
Sea to energy-hungry world markets, although it has no pipelines of
its own.

Although a ceasefire was reached in 1994, its conflict with Azerbaijan
over the tiny Nagorno-Karabakh region remains unresolved and a threat
to stability.

Relations with another of its neighbors, Turkey, are also fraught
because Ankara does not recognize the killing of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey during World War One as genocide.

Armenians hope a peaceful election will help speed the country’s
recovery after its economy contracted by 14.2 percent in 2009.

The economy grew by 4.6 percent in 2011 and the International Monetary
Fund expects 3.8 percent growth in 2012. Inflation fell to 4.7 percent
in 2011 from 9.4 percent the year before.

Eight parties and one party bloc are running for seats in parliament
and 155 candidates are registered in 41 single-mandate constituencies.

The ruling coalition previously included two other parties, but one
pulled out in 2009, citing differences over foreign policy. The other
coalition partner, Country of Law, may struggle to cross the five
percent of votes threshold to enter parliament.

Analysts say the Armenian National Congress, a coalition of opposition
groups led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, could make it into
parliament after leading street protests since losing the 2008
presidential poll to Sarksyan.

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Al-Manar TV (Hezbolla), Lebanon
May 6 2012

Greece, Armenia, Serbia Braced for Vote amid Economic Challenges
Local Editor
Poll stations in Greece, Armenia and Serbia opened on Sunday, amid
economic challenges in the countries.

General elections started in Greece on Sunday, after a campaign marked
by public anger over swinging austerity cuts.
Interior ministry announced polluting stations opened at 7:00 am (0400
GMT), and it’s due to end at 7:00pm, with the first exit polls
expected soon after. The first official results are not expected much
before 11:00 pm.

After two years of cuts, opinion polls suggest voters are set to
punish Greece’s two main parties for having agreed to more
belt-tightening in return for two international bailouts worth 240
billion Euros ($314.0 billion).
That prospect worries international lenders such as the European Union
and the International Monetary Fund, who fear that the resulting
political instability could plunge the eurozone back into crisis.

Both Greece’s Pasok socialist party and the New Democracy
conservatives, the dominant political forces for the past four
decades, look likely to lose votes to around 30 smaller parties.
Some of those parties are openly hostile to the cuts imposed by the
previous administration in return for the international loans.

SERBIA VOTE OVERSHADOWED BY ECONOMY
Meanwhile, Serbians voted Sunday for a new president and parliament
after a campaign dominated by economic issues, pitting pro-European
President Boris Tadic against conservative populist Tomislav Nikolic.

Surveys have put Tadic and Nikolic neck-and-neck in the presidential
race, with their parties also running close in the parliamentary
elections.

The elections are seen as a turning point for Serbia because for the
first time in almost two decades they are focused on economy rather
than the Balkan conflicts that left Belgrade internationally isolated
for much of the past two decades.

Both camps support Serbia’s EU membership bid while breakaway Kosovo,
which overshadowed the last polls, has been pushed to the background
by concerns about Serbia’s stumbling economy and record unemployment.

ARMENIA VOTE
In Armenia, parliamentary elections kicked off on Sunday amid a battle
for supremacy between the governing party and its coalition partner,
led by a wealthy former arm wrestling champion.

“We expect highly active participation,” Armen Khazarian, head of the
commission at one polling station in Yerevan, told AFP.
It is the biggest test of the ex-Soviet state’s democratic credentials
since disputed presidential elections in 2008, when mass rallies ended
in clashes between riot police and opposition supporters that left 10
people dead.

The authorities in the impoverished country of 3.3 million people have
promised an unprecedentedly clean contest for the 131-seat National
Assembly in the hope of avoiding further political turmoil.

Mediamax, Armenia
May 6 2012

ANC, PAP and ARFD position to be announced tomorrow

Yerevan/Mediamax/. The position of the Joint Headquarters is likely to
be announced already tomorrow.

Member of the Supreme Body of ARFD Armen Rustamyan said tonight that
the members of the Joint Headquarters – ANC, ARFD and PAP – are
currently getting information from the election districts.

`Each party will discuss the data on its own and we will compare them
in the Joint Headquarters then’, said Armen Rustamyan.

ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan said that the Congress planned to hold
a rally on May 8 already before elections.

Covert propaganda at the polling stations

10:51 pm | May 06, 2012 | Politics

Bjni mineral water bottles with the logo of the Republican Party of
Armenia (HHK) on the label were distributed to voters during the
elections at the polling stations of precinct N 1.

We remind that the owner of Bjni mineral water factory is Ruben
Hayrapetyan, who is also running in this precinct.

Mediamax, Armenia
May 6 2012

Exit poll gives ruling party 44 per cent in Armenian parliamentary election

Yerevan, 6 May: As of the preliminary results of the exit poll
conducted in Armenia today (data of 18:00 [1400 gmt, two hours before
the polls closed]), the Republican Party of Armenia is the leader by
the number of votes.

An exit poll has been conducted among 25 thousand voters of Armenia
today upon Armenia TV company’s request. It has been conducted by
Gallup International Association.

According to the preliminary data presented on Armenia TV Company’s
air, the votes distribution is as follows:

Republican Party of Armenia – 44.4 per cent
Prosperous Armenia Party – 28.8 per cent
Armenian National Congress – 6.33 per cent
Orinats Yerkir [Law-Governed Country] – 6.14 per cent
Heritage -5.92 per cent
[Armenian Revolutionary Federation] Dashnaktutsyun – 5.18 per cent
Armenian Communist Party – 2.2 per cent
Armenian Democratic Party – 0.51 per cent.

PRESS RELEASE
The Heritage Party
31 Moscovian Street, Suite 172
Yerevan, Armenia
Tel.: (+374 – 10) 53.69.13
Fax: (+374 – 10) 53.26.97
Email: [email protected]
Website:

06 May 2012

Alerts and electoral violation facts received from the election
control group of the `Heritage’ headquarters at 15:00 in 06.05.2012

– The early volatile ink was not let to be changed in the 1/11 polling
station at 11:15. This was informed from the very precinct by the
`Heritage’ party representative Seda Safaryan.
– `Heritage’ party member Susanna Barkhudaryan voting in 5/12 polling
station reported that the number of the people in the center of the
precinct place exceeds the number allowed by law and makes over 31
people. A protocol is drawn up and signed by the secretary.
– `Heritage’ party member Anahit Bakhshyan received an alert that in
32/23 polling station an open voting was implemented for the RPA
candidate Karen Karapetyan.
– According to the 14/14 precinct committee chairman Epraqsya
Matevosyan the head of Karbi community Frunze Nazaretyan being a proxy
person at the same time, has entered the precinct place with the badge
of the Republican Party and has refused to take it off as a way of
agitation. `Heritage’ Party member Anahit Bakhshyan has called RA
General Prosecutor’s Office in connection with this and informed
prosecutor Koryun Piloyan about the case.
– There have been accumulations /Kharberd/ in 12/37 and 12/34 polling
stations in the morning. Near the precinct a woman named Marine has
been campaigning to vote for the 4th candidate of the majority list
and for the 7rd candidate of the proportional list of RP. According to
the `Heritage’ party representative Anahit Bakhshyan the Heritage
proxy person has the recorded video.
– According to the information got to Anahit Bakhshyan electoral
bribes are given in one of the entrances of the building near N 160
School in Erebuni. The same is done behind the gas station wall near
the 12/09 polling station located in Artashisyan Street.
– At 12:50 the proxy person of the `Heritage’ party Varduhi Ohanyan
alerted that a woman in 6/12 polling station (v. Ohanyan has recorded
the video) was bringing groups of voters to the polling station going
in and out the precinct place though being already voted in the
morning. The same person intimidated one of the voters in front of the
proxy person who was then in the voting booth. The proxy person has
enlisted the very case but the commission chairman who represents the
ARF party and the commission secretary have not yet registered the
protocol. In the polling station and nearby has not been any
representative of the police. `Heritage’ headquarters has alerted the
police hotline about that at 13:00 but any policeman has not arrived
to the polling station till 15:00.
– There were accumulations in the 14/1 and 14/2 polling station in the
region of Aragacotn at 12:20 and the representatives of the police
could not establish an order. Anahi tBakhshyan was informed about that
by the `Heritage’ representatives.
– `Heritage’ proxy person Samvel Hayrapetyan reported that the
proportional and majority voting boxes have not been sealed in the
38/08 electoral place till 10:00. The commission members reasoned that
they have not noticed that. There have already been ballots in the
boxes before being sealed.
– Zaruhi Postanjyan has alerted that in the 4/12 polling station about
600 rural voters have been recorded who have received temporary
registration in the houses in Arabkir community by the data of April
14 without having the agreement of the owners of those houses.
– The chairman of the `Heritage’ commission Daniel Ioannisyan has
alerted that in the 06/16 polling station the proxy persons of the RPA
party and the majority candidate Rouben Hovsepyan several times have
exceeded the allowed number (they have been more than one). This has
been recorded by the signature of 5 members of the commission included
the signature of the chairman and this has been registered.
– By the data of 15:00 o’clock many of the chairmen of the polling
stations denied to change the early volatile ink of the stamps by
common ink.
– There are alerts from a number of polling stations about the
elections with pens of different color which can make controllable the
choice of the citizens’ violating the secrecy of the vote.

Election control group of the `Heritage’ Campaign Headquarters

ARDF rep. slams Prosperous Armenia, ANC, Dashnaktsutyun bribe rumors

May 6, 2012 – 18:23 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – A representative of ARF Dashnaktsutyun (ARFD) at
inter-party headquarters formed to counter electoral violations
commented on the statement of Heritage opposition party, suggesting
electoral bribes were distributed by Prosperous Armenia, Armenian
National Congress (ANC) opposition bloc and ARFD.

According to Spartak Seyranyan the rumors above were spread in
response to information on violations committed by Republican Party of
Armenia.

Seyranyan slammed the rumors and negative propaganda on election day
as a provocation and a gross violation of electoral law.