Members of the ANC parliamentary group, Levon Zurabyan, Aram Manukyan, Lyudmila Sargsyan, Nikol Pashinyan, Stepan Demirchyan and Gagik Jhangiryan, have made a legislative proposal to make amendments to the Election Code of the Republic of Armenia. As the reason, the ANC parliamentary group members mention, “The machine of election fraud that is improved from election to election threatens to completely destroy the constitutional order in the country. It destroys even the least trust in election processes, thus, in the government, it makes the society feel disappointed, desperate, lack alternative, consider taking extreme measures unavoidable.” www.aravot.am inquired of Harutyun Hambardzumyan, the head of The Choice Is Yours NGO, whether he had gotten acquainted with the proposals of the ANC and whether they were acceptable for him. Mr. Hambardzumyan replied, “The Heritage Party has also made a legislative proposal, but they have put forward concrete reasons. And some observations of the ANC are incomprehensible for me. For example, I don’t understand their proposal regarding prisoners. Why do they want to ban that thing? The opposition shouldn’t have any interest in it, since during marches and rallies, members of the ANC are often brought in and an investigation is launched. It turns out that they are against the participation of the ANC members in the election, stating that they are against prisoners’ participation in the election. I think it is incomprehensible, since their people are often brought in by the police as people who disrupt the order and criminal charges are brought against them. If there was a discussion, I would raise that issue stating how they as an opposition thought it is possible; they deprived their people of voting.”
Mr. Hambardzumyan communicated that they also proposed some things proposed by the ANC, for example, that it was possible to copy or hang the lists of voters at the end of the election. However, Mr. Hambardzumyan didn’t understand another proposal of the ANC
either, “I didn’t understand why they equalize saying that those who are engaged in exercises on the election day should come to the places where those exercises are carried out and vote in their places. It both causes technical problems and is a bit incomprehensible how they think it is possible to coordinate.”
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Talking about the speculations about the proportional and majoritarian representation, our interlocutor noted that it was an inner-party issue and parties themselves had to decide which voting system was more comfortable.
We inquired of H. Hambardzumyan whether cooperation with the ANC was possible. He replied, “I have met with Levon Zurabyan and he has sent me the package to get acquainted. It seems to me that there will be discussions in the National Assembly, since two parties have made legislative proposals and it means that this issue will be put on the agenda sooner or later. I will necessarily participate in the discussions and cooperation is possible on many issues.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
