Yesterday the Constitutional Court concluded the examination of the combined case based on the petitions filed by candidates for president Raffi Hovhannisyan and Andreas Ghukasyan. The candidates for president are challenging the Election of the President of the Republic of Armenia Decision made by the Central Election Commission on February 25. The ruling of the Constitutional Court will be made public today. In response to a question of www.aravot.am whether the petitioner’s arguments were grounded, Margarit Yesayan, a member of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) parliamentary group who had participated in two sessions and had followed the trial, said: “My impression is that those petitions lacked facts and were based merely on assessments, emotions, and some quotes. I didn’t see proofs that processes that could have had an impact on the results of the presidential election had taken place. The Q&A of the Court members also made that clear. Raffi Hovhannisyan and his representatives filed a 16-page petition, a large part of which
was assessments, another large part was quotes from this or that document, and only on a few final pages, facts were presented. However, those were not the facts that could allow the Court to make a ruling in favor of the petitioners.” Ms. Yesayan stated that she continued to claim that neither Raffi Hovhannisyan, nor his followers and supporters had ever imagined that Mr. Hovhannisyan would win such a big percentage, therefore they hadn’t prepared for further action. Then M. Yesayan went into detail: “There is no petition after the election itself. R. Hovhannisyan’s supporters claim that there were incidents at night; that is why they didn’t have time to do that. But the deadline was 6 p.m. the next day, and if they had wanted and had had enough evidence, they could have managed to do that also from the time perspective. Whereas they didn’t do that. Ms. Postanjyan proposed to open the sacks of all polling places, which contained the ballots and the records. The Constitutional Court received that proposal yesterday afternoon. With the best will in the world, one couldn’t have done that technically, since the deadline for the Constitutional Court’s ruling is 6 p.m. today. Or the 120 polling places, with regard to which they had filed petitions; 3-4 polling places have been opened, and even if we agree that those votes were for Raffi Hovhannisyan, and they are added to his votes, the margin between 58% and 37% is so large that it could not have an impact on the final results.” For comparison, Ms. Yesayan recalled how juridically correct the petition filed by Stepan Demirchyan’s supporters in 2003 had been drawn up. “With the best will in the world, I think, the Constitutional Court couldn’t have satisfied Raffi Hovhannisyan’s and Andrias Ghukasyan’s demands, since the parties didn’t have and haven’t presented enough evidence to the Constitutional Court.” Stepan Safaryan, the Heritage Party secretary, on the other hand, said with regard to the petition’s being based on assessments: “It points out all the polling places, where the fact that the election was rigged is obvious not only to the Heritage Party, but also to international observers and society. Yesterday R. Hovhannisyan’s representatives filed a motion in the Constitutional Court to open the sacks of the polling places. If the Constitutional Court wants to do something about the results of the election, then it could have opened them; why would it refuse, as the polling place commissions did, sitting idly by for five days?” In response to an observation that it was not possible technically, taking into account the deadline of the Constitutional Court’s ruling, Mr. Safaryan said: “The future of Armenian democracy has nothing to do with the Constitutional Court’s not having time. The future of the Republic of Armenia is too important and society’s trust in elections is more valuable, than the judge’s having or not having time. The Constitutional Court can extend the deadline and examine the case on its merits. If it doesn’t do that, it gives a nonsensical reason for that to carry out the government’s instruction. The trial proved that society is right, that the doubts are reasonable, and that the election was rigged. State bodies in the shape of the Constitutional Court avoid revealing the dirt, since they are not allowed to do that. I have never pinned hopes on the Constitutional Court. The situation can be rescued only by the people; the resolution is in the hands of the people.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
