The Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission Tigran Mukuchyan, in an interview with Aravot.am, referring to the alerts of the “No” camp, assured that the Commission has not received any alerting message. Note that today the ANC and “Heritage” parties disseminated a statement, according to which the “No” camp joint HQ and the Heritage Party are receiving numerous alerting messages from the newly appointed members of precinct commissions regarding the pressure on them. The alerting messages, according to the statement, indicate that the pressure is organized by the governors, some heads of the communities and separate individuals selected by the majority electoral procedure.
CEC Chairman Mukuchyan, in the interview with us, told that training courses for the precinct commission members are going on throughout the Republic, at the end of each course, the participants receive information from the organizers about the problems raised by the attendees to the training and the commission members. “We sum up the sessions for each day, which are attended by precinct commission members from various residential areas of Armenia. We have not received any such alerting messaged from the commission members. At the moment, there is no application, a complaint and an alerting message from the commission members pertaining to a pressure against them or an act of unauthorized intervention by the law. At least during the training, they can raise or via local or central commission. There is no such a thing.”
Armen Martirosyan
Deputy Chairman of the “Heritage” party Armen Martirosyan, in an interview with Aravot.am, assured that they can provide the Commission the names of the people who has sent alerting messages and are subjected to pressure. As for Mr. Mukuchyan’s statement, Mr. Martirosyan assured that the pressures are carried out in different forms: intimidations and allure in bribery. “In both cases, the work is disrupted. Mr. Mukuchyans words in the view of the authorities are correct. Today, they indicate a 2% poverty reduction, if they are looking by this angle, then yes, it is true, but in reality it looks differently.”
In Mr. Martirosyan’s words, people fearing that those who intimidate them will not be punished, are reluctant to state it, however, they inform us. “I think that those who listen to our phone conversations have easily listened to this conversation of who they are and what their names are. If we look at them, there is no problem prior to any elections, but we see what shameful elections we have after every election. It is not news that our phones are wiretapped: the Security Service, the Police agency network. How operative is their work that they do not know who they are? They know very well who they are.”
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Those who use pressures extend their hands outside Armenia. Mr. Martirosyan said that it reached the point that the employer of the husband in migrant work of a Commission member was found and was instructed to put pressure against the husband too, “this man has said to the husband of the wife, tell your wife, if she continues to work in the Commission, you will be fired from work. Here, a young member of the precinct Commission in one of the cities was told by his employer, the Deputy Director, to stay away from the Commission, the mayor has told him to fire him from work if he continues to stay in the Commission. They are openly operating against the Commission members in Vanadzor and Gyumri.”
Nelly BABAYAN
