The situation in Gyumri is tense because of the complaints of candidates for council. 7 candidates for council, including those who are in places beyond the threshold complain requesting to count their votes correctly. Consequently, those who have already celebrated their victory by treating their voters to cognac or beer are compelled to accept the fact that they have been left out of the list.
And the appeals are mainly for the reason that a candidate hasn’t crossed the threshold by, say, one-vote margin. For example, during a conversation with us, Gayane Bichakhchyan, the principal of No. 29 School in Gyumri, informed that she had been left out of the very last – 21st – place, which is the threshold. Let us remind that 71 candidates for 21 seats in the
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council were announced in Gyumri. The above-mentioned woman certainly complained being convinced that her votes had been rigged.
Let us note that yesterday a more amusing story took place – Vardan Yeghiazaryan, a resident of the neighborhood of Artsakh, Gyumri, which the residents of Gyumri call the Turkish Neighborhood, being convinced that he had won many votes at the polling station of the neighborhood located in No. 5 School, was surprised when he saw that he had won only 3 votes. The thing is that the whole family of this youth, many of his kin and friends voted for him, whereas the commission gave him only 3 votes. He complained requesting a recount at the given polling station and consequently, the candidate’s votes increased from 3 to 103. The votes cast for him were distributed among different candidates. This is certainly not the only case – yesterday the recount revealed that ballots cast for Meruzhan Gaboyan, a candidate for membership in the council, appeared among those cast for other candidates.
No. 34 electoral district commission chairman Eduard Baghramyan said during a conversation with us that they had already made corrections, although, according to him, the commission of the given polling station must be held responsible. “The issue of punishment arises, because the commission has been able to shift votes, which is certainly punishable. The Election Code provides for respective measures, besides, an issue of criminal responsibility arises. We will talk about this issue later on, after summarizing. There must be punishment, otherwise, similar members of commissions from the chairman to members, so this should be discussed who has made the mistake and who will be held accountable. Rather this is an issue of the future, this is an issue to be dealt with by investigation bodies,” Eduard Baghramyan said.
According to him, these facts are not about the literacy of commission members – the commission members have received double training – but rather there is a tendency, they have deliberately shifted the votes.
By the way, today complaining candidates with their supporters and neighborhood guys rallied outside the building where the commission was and surrounded the building trying to enter. They were compelled to call a police group early in the morning and close the gates.
A few of them claimed that the morning fuss had started, because when they had come to recount, they had found the ballot boxes opened. In a nutshell, there was not an inch of room in the front yard of the building where the commission was also because each of the candidates came in an expensive car.
So both the winning and losing candidates complain – those who took the places from 15 onward on the list comprised of 21 people have no guarantee that they have won. According to Eduard Baghramyan, the votes won by candidates in places from 17 through 21 differ from each other by 3-4 or 10 at most and this arouses doubts in their minds – perhaps they have won more votes. “If the difference between the votes was bigger, certainly there wouldn’t be a request for recounting,” the chairman of no. 34 electoral district commission is convinced.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
