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Today in a conversation with reporters, Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor presented observation results of the elections to the National Assembly and indicated that while implementing the observation mission, a number of violations were recorded.  The observers of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor recorded that in several polling stations in Vanadzor and Gyumri the stamp put in the passport disappeared after 15 minutes, while according to Part 5, Article 66 of the RA Electoral Code, local electoral commissions are provided with such material for stamping the passports which should remain for at least 12 hours and then disappears.

According to Artur Sakunts, the criminal use of circulating ballots was used during the elections whereby empty envelopes were removed from the ballot boxes or both majoritarian and proportional ballots were put in the same envelope. According to him, a call was received from the 30/32 Polling Stations that bribe were being distributed in the campaign office of the Republican Party of Armenia.

He continued that they received calls from citizens on the day of voting about distribution of bribes, and the organization responded to the calls immediately. ”The confidence of the constituency in the electoral processes is not improved and this is conditioned by the violations“,-stated the speaker adding that these elections were not fair because the constituency could not express their free will.

Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor also recorded a lack of professional training of the local electoral commissions, namely lack of awareness of the law and inadequate management, as well as violating voting privacy and hindering expression of voters’ free will.

To the question whether Viktor Dallakyan’s defeat was somehow a result of Artur Sakunts’ activities (Viktor Dallakyan, a representative of the RPA, was nominated at Precinct 30 but he lost to unpartisan, Edmon Marukyan, implementing legal activities), Mr. Sakunts could not answer but he said that Edmon Marukyan’s victory was conditioned by his being nonpartisan, implementing human rights protection, as well as by the voters’ awareness of the political issues.

As  to the evaluation of observers, namely OSCE observers, the speaker said that the evaluation was objective, to the extent that elections were held in a quiet and peaceful atmosphere, which is mentioned in the OSCE report. However, Sakunts indicated that formally it was so, but in reality it was a controlled and covert process.

Speaking about the evaluation of the CIS, Sakunts said that they present evaluations by countries where elections are not democratic.

Source: http://mardik.am