“There are more and more alerts about handing out election bribes,” Artur Sakunts, the head of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office, said and added: “we are getting an alert from citizens of Vanadzor now that election bribes are being handed out. However, we don’t see the respective measures taken by the police, the prosecutor’s office, and the National Security Service (NSS) against the background of the increase in alerts about handing out election bribes. They hold gatherings all the time.” Artak Kirakosyan, the president of the Civil Society Institute board, informed that there was a hotline 080 080 804, on which citizens mainly called for legal advice. Then he went into detail: “Most of the calls are for clarification, about being included in the lists. There are fewer alerts about election fraud. We have received only one call about election bribes, during which the citizen said that no one would give him a bribe and asked what he should do. This is because we deal with political issues during this election, rather than with an electoral process. Since the current government is convinced that they will win, they are absolutely uninterested in fraud. On the other hand, even if the opposition candidates want, they will not have the resources to commit so much fraud.” Vahram Barseghyan, the director of the Center for Electoral Systems NGO and the head of a monitoring mission, described the election campaign as generally normal and added: “The quality is higher compared to the National Assembly election. We haven’t recorded serious violations, the cases of election bribes and using the administrative resource have been fewer. The government tried to prevent all that from the first either for real or to silence us. We have filed petitions in the Constitutional Court, the National Assembly, and the Central Election Commission (CEC) regarding the contradictions between the articles of the Constitution. According to one of the articles, if there are insurmountable obstacles for one of the candidates, the election can be postponed. However, according to another article, the petition should be filed by the very person who faces the insurmountable obstacles. Let’s say, that person is kidnapped, or he, as Hayrikyan, is in the resuscitation area, who would file a petition in the Constitution Court in his stead? A legal commentary should be made on this. Admittedly, the PACE observers said that the voter registration lists were false, were inflated, but I don’t think that there is such a thing, since we have checked them too, and the voter registration lists are all right.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
