“The latest referendum (the constitutional reforms held on December 6 – Ed.) showed that the main fighters against election fraud were the journalists and observers, with the exception of rare cases when the committee members or proxies were trying to do something. It was strange enough that those with less power – the journalists and observers – were trying to fight against election frauds. Thus, it appeared that they are trying to fight against it,” such an observation was made by the Chairman of “Civil Society Institute” NGO Arman Danielyan in an interview with Aravot.am, referring to the new provision proposed to the draft Electoral Code.
Accordingly, the number of local observers and mass media present at the precinct is defined to be 8. Also, both international and local observation organizations can participate in the elections exclusively by the invitation of the RA President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the National Assembly or CEC. In recent period, “CSI” has quite actively observed the elections of various levels in Armenia. This innovation, naturally, according to the opinion of our interlocutor, does not claim to provide the “step forward”, which the government representatives and the authors of the draft were promising prior to publication of the draft. “They have learned lessons from the previous experience, particularly, from the referendum and are trying to fight,”- said our interlocutor.
Arman Danielyan also has reservations with regard to the rating vote qualified in the proportional electoral. This provision is not also acceptable by the opposition political forces. “A proportional system is introduced, but in reality, it becomes only majoritarian. The ruling oligarch, authority of given territory or I don’t know who else will do everything to make his party passing. This is not a proportional electoral system but purely majoritarian,” opines our interlocutor. On February 12, RA President Serzh Sargsyan delivered a speech at the presidential residence and stated that we are entering a new phase with the new Constitution and major changes expect us in our lives.
Read also
To the question of Aravot.am of how Mr. Danielyan will estimate the proposed draft on the background of the President’s speech, which is going to be the key to all solutions, Arman Danielyan said, “Well, some essential things are changing, in fact, they are trying to keep the journalists and observers away from the polling stations.” In any case, our interlocutor hopes that they will manage to be free from these dispute-causing provisions during the discussion.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
In the photo: “Haykakan Zhamanak” newspaper correspondent is taken out of the polling station during the referendum vote on December 6, 2015
