As stated by RPA MP, Rustam Maxmudyan, who is currently in London, the Republic of Armenia is in a good position as compared to its neighboring states relative to election processes. From November 8 to 11, the conference on the “Abuse of Administrative Resources in Election Processes: Democratic Elections Challenges” of the Congress of Regional and Local Authorities has taken place in London. Armenian MPs, who have left to London, RPA member Rustam Makhmudyan, Shushan Sardaryan, “Yelq” bloc president Nikol Pashinyan and Luiza Sargsyan from “Tsarukyan” alliance represent the issues existing in Armenia and try to find mechanisms for their solutions during the discussions in London conference.
Rustam Maxmudyan informed he has come to the conclusion that in all countries the issues relative to election processes are almost the same: “All have the objective of making legislation stricter, changing the mentality and being a braver citizen to manifest consistency in election processes.” RPA MP assured – the Republic of Armenia makes both the administrative, civil and criminal legislation stricter. According to him, the citizens are more consistent, the evidence of which is also the frequency of election results’ appellation.
Rustam Maxmudyan assured – the mistakes in electoral lists have decreased to null. To our reminder implying that we were facing an issue of the abuse of administrative resource during the previous elections, nevertheless, Mr. Maxmudyan responded: “We should draw conclusions from the documents presented to a discussion by the Council of Europe. Our new Electoral Code solves that issue.”
Asked in what position we are as compared with the other member states of the Council of Europe, Mr. Maxmudyan assured that we are in a rather higher position than our neighbors: “In a legal aspect, we are more literal than our neighbor countries. We have our advantages. However, we should change our mentality from a certain perspective”
Asked, how the Azerbaijani delegation behaved itself during the conference, Mr. Maxmudyan informed that a rather passive delegation was present there: they even got surprised by how unaware they were.
To the question whether the members of our delegation have made a speech and whether Nikol Pashinyan has raised a question, Mr. Maxmudyan responded that Nikol Pashinyan could not ignore addressing the case of “Garbageleaks” during the conference.
TATEV HARUTYUNYAN
“Aravot”
