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PAP WON THE REACE OF DISTRIBUTING ELECTION BRIBES

Politics

36 observers of the Vanadzor office of Helsinki Civil Assembly observed the election campaign and the May 12 voting in Armenian towns and villages.

“The parliamentary election does not comply with the standards of democracy. There were violations of the Electoral Code and decisions of the CEC which affected the conduct and the outcome of the election. Besides, the Republican Party used its administrative resources, and the Prosperous Armenia - financial ones,” said Arthur Sakunts, the head of the Vanadzor office of Helsinki Civil Assembly.

Arthur Sakunts believes that the arrest of Arman Babajany, the editor of the Time Yerevan, Jirair Sefilyan and Vardan Malkhasyan, the members of the Civil Initiative for Defense of Liberated Territories, and Alexander Arzumanyan, the representative of the Civil Disobedience Movement, are related to the election and have a political context.

“He thinks it is at least amazing that none of the law enforcers, who charged Alexander Arzumanyan with money laundering, wonders where the money of election bribes came from and tries to reveal the source,” Arthur Sakunts said.

In speaking about Lori he said the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, the Republican Party, the Prosperous Armenia Party and the United Labor Party set out in a race of distributing electoral bribes, and “after 7 o’clock the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing.”

The Vanadzor office of Helsinki Civil Assembly will extend the facts to all international observation missions. For the time being only the Impeachment Alliance has responded.

The government agencies are responsible for the non-democratic elections, however, the Vanadzor office of Helsinki Civil Assembly noticed that if civil society institutions, observation missions, proxies, others, would work more effectively, a number of violations and fraud would be possible to prevent. By the way, the Vanadzor office had accredited 54 observers, but only 36 observed the election. According to Arthur Sakunts, the others were afraid.