During a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) permanent commission today in Tirana, the report of the PACE monitoring mission on the Armenian parliamentary election was discussed.
Davit Harutyunyan, the head of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, participated in the meeting from our country. In response to Aravot’s question what assessments had been voiced during the discussion, he said, “Generally, the oral assessments and the written text don’t correspond to each other. The written text is much stricter, the oral assessments are incomparably higher – they talked about dramatic improvement of the Armenian democracy orally. They talked about what situation had been in polling stations, what political struggle there had been, how mass media had reacted. However, the written text, I think, includes serious criticism. I put forward my remarks concerning the written text. However, as it is common at the PACE, the issue is firstly discussed in the bureau and as a rule, the report put forward is not approved and doesn’t become a resolution, but it is just heard and asserted that they have heard that report. Unfortunately, there were also a set of procedural violations – members of the monitoring mission didn’t receive that report and actually the report was prepared just by the head of the delegation. Admittedly, today that report has been sent to the members of the delegation, but it seems that everything is upside down from the sequential perspective. The members of the monitoring mission should have first discussed and put forward their proposal, only after which that report should have been made public. However, it is a familiar style – the PACE, as we have already mentioned many times, gradually appears in a deep crisis and gradually shifts from an organization of values to an organization of mere interests.”
