ArmInfo.The early parliamentary elections in Armenia indicated that there are problems in the judicial and law enforcement systems, where there is a need for fundamental reforms. A member of the Independent Observer initiative, human rights activist Artur Sakunts stated this during a press conference.
In this regard, he noted that it is not observers who should take the initiative to identify violations and signal them, but the law enforcement agencies should take appropriate measures. At the same time, Sakunts also pointed out gaps in the Electoral Code, as a result of which cases of abuse of administrative resources were registered during the election campaign. "This suggests that we need fundamental and qualitative changes in the electoral legislation in order to exclude such risks in the future," said the member of the initiative.
Concern, he said, was also caused by inadequate training of commissioners at polling stations in terms of knowledge of the law, from members to chairmen. In turn, the representative of the "Independent Observer" initiative Daniel Ioannisian said that as a result of monitoring the electoral process, several dozen violations were revealed, of which 52% concerned the secrecy of the vote. Many violations, he said, also related to campaigning on election day, in particular, 37.5% associated with the "Armenia" bloc, 15.7% - with the "I Have Honor" bloc, 14% - associated with the "Civil Contract". 4.7% - PAP and National Democratic Pole. At the same time, Ioannisian said that in 10% of polling stations, citizens were not provided with all 25 ballots, in 10% - ballots were taken out, in 10% of cases citizens performed their civic duty accompanied by others, and the latter did not ask the voter for opinion. At a third of the polling stations, other persons were present when citizens expressed their will.
He also said that 30 messages were sent to law enforcement agencies, the lion's share of which related to electoral bribes, and part of illegal influence on voters. In this context, Ionnisian noted that the signals about cases of electoral bribes and pressure from employers were mainly related to the "Armenia" bloc. In particular, he named the following enterprises in this vein: Gazprom, Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine, Electric Networks of Armenia and others. Pressure, according to him, was exerted both in local self-government bodies and their structures. Signals of abuse of administrative resources were mainly recorded during the rallies of the Civil Contract party.
At the same time, it was noted that in 4 polling stations a discrepancy was registered with the number of voters and the number of ballots.