22 observers of Unison NGO will carry out their mission during the May 6 election in the region of Syunik – in Meghri, Agarak and a few villages. Armen Alaverdyan, the executive director of the organization, talked about this during a conversation with www.aravot.am, “Since we have carried out many missions in Yerevan and we don’t see many changes in terms of availability of the polling stations, the campaign for deaf voters is as unavailable as it was before, which was a very easy issue to solve… we have decided to carry out our mission in the region and to compare the information we have gotten from the region with that in the capital.”
In the pre-election period, Mr. Alaverdyan is concerned about the fact that the right to vote of the disabled is violated, “The majority of the polling stations, including the polling station where I am going to vote, have many steps and don’t have wheelchair ramps, in order that a voter may easily come and do his duty. According to the information we have got, many disabled voters,
knowing that their polling stations have problems with physical availability, prefer not to participate.”
The executive director of Unison NGO reasserted given the experience of the previous years that people became more sober, when they saw foreign observers, but at the same time, their short-term visits to polling stations didn’t change anything, “They don’t send sufficient number of observers, in order they may be present in all polling stations all day long or at least during the vote or during the vote counting, it would be more complete, if they had as many voters as would allow them to cover the whole republic and they would be able to visit polling stations at any time.”
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Arpine SIMONYAN
