“The upcoming elections will be essentially different from many former elections, if not all. That does not mean that we will be satisfied. We can be even more dissatisfied in certain cases,” the executive director of the Transparency International anti-corruption center, Sona Ayvazyan, said during the discussion titled, “What are the possible electoral developments and how to prevent the threats to the democratic process on the eve and during snap elections” organized by the Political Dialogue organization.
She said that this is the first time where we don’t truly know who will win. “There will be a political struggle for life and death, which can force them to not stand in the way of any measures.”
According to Sona Ayvazyan, administrative or other levers may be implemented, but they cannot target any other force and say that this force has these levers since these measures are decentralized. “The fact that regional lists were removed means that we will not have criminally motivated forces. We expect there to be a reduction in the participation of criminal and oligarch elements, as well as their distribution of money and promises. It is expected that this will be placed on a more political basis.”
Ayvazyan said that they knew the ways to rig elections in the past, but now, observation missions must be careful to find and eliminate new methods and mechanisms that will be used in an attempt to receive illegal votes.
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Hripsime Jebejyan
