Member of Armenian delegation to PACE Naira Karapetyan’s speech in PACE
Before my speech, I want to say once more that April 24 was the Day of Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide innocent victims. Never again, and today we must unite our efforts to prevent such barbaric acts towards humanity.
Now let me shift to the main topic of my speech, about elections. I would like to advise my Azeri colleague while talking about international organizations to use correct names, correct position, and especially as a member of PACE read PACE election observation official reports, where in the first article is written that Armenian elections were held with the big respect to fundamental human rights. And don’t read only what is written in Azeri media.
Now let me introduce some facts about our elections. As you know, in the reporting period Armenia hold parliamentary elections, which were totally news for us – beginning from the new State Governance Parliamentary System by the New Constitution and up to the new developed and improved voting system with a quite new technical support, live broadcasting from the all polling stations, and other mechanisms called to secure the validity of the electoral processes. These technical changes absolutely exclude any possibility of any falsification, and what is most important they bring real trust of the voters towards the electoral process.
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Armenia is making a transition to a new system of governance, and it is necessary to underline that all these changes dealing with the mechanisms called to secure the validity of the electoral processes were done as a result of long-lasting wide political and social discussions that have been ended with total consensus between the political parties – ruling and oppositional, and civil society. New Electoral Code has been changed even after the main adoption by the request of opposition and we have accepted all the suggestion.
And the goal was achieved – we have had the trust of voters.
It must be noted with satisfaction the active participation of mass media, social networking and civil society in the election processes. Besides international observation missions, the government of Armenia has engaged in the observation mission a large number, over 30 thousand representatives of local public organizations, which also include multiple foreign observers. Campaigning was broadcasted balanced and fairly, and on the elections day, there was a live broadcasting from polling stations. Hotline service of Police was available 24 hours a day.
One thing is most important to figure out – if you really have a strong political will to have a progressive country, you need to understand, that there is no alternative to Democracy.