Today Aravot.am inquired from Traian Hristea, the head of the EU delegation, and Karel Hofstra, acting head of the OSCE Yerevan Office, during a press conference whether the finances provided for former elections had served their purpose or not, to which Mr. Hofstra responded, “At least the OSCE share of the money spent on former elections did not reach such amounts. Formerly even 10% of this sum was not spent on an election. Was it really too little not to be able to substantially influence the process of conducting elections? Every one of us knows how elections were held, I think it is in the interest of all of us that this time the election is much better. Everybody, with whom I have talked from government, opposition, international community, confirms that.” The EU representative answered, “I can only say that it is the first time EU funds such works in Armenia.”
Aravot.am inquired how many observers would come and whether the opposition demand for 2000 observers was realistic or not. According to the acting head of the OSCE Yerevan Office, there won’t be 2000 observers, “However, I don’t want to cast a shade on the results of the visit on the pre-election assessment mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) that will visit Armenia in 12 weeks. I wouldn’t like to make predictions, but I think that the ODIHR will carry out a comprehensive election monitoring mission here.” Mr. Hofstra thinks that the number of the international observers will be close to the number of observers who previously visited Armenia, “I.e. a few hundred that probably is not enough to guarantee presence in every electoral district day-and-night, but it is more than enough to have good options and information to make the right assessment of the election conduct. However, the exact list of members of the monitoring mission will be decided in 2 weeks, based on the activities of the mission assessing electoral needs.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
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