“PROSPEROUS ARMENIA PARTY” AND “REPUBLICAN PARTY OF ARMENIA” SPENT MUCH MORE

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“The Central Electoral Commission does not observe activities carried our before the official campaign launch as camping activities. This certifies the deficiency of the Electoral Code, which does not define what a campaign is”, this was registered by the Center for Regional Development/ Transparency International Armenia NGO. The Organization carried out a monitoring on pre-election period financing and administrative resource abuse during 2007 parliamentary elections. The program was implemented in Yerevan, Gjumri and Vanadzor cities in Armenia.

According to the Organization, another defect of the law is the financing the activities of this or that political figure or a party which is not controlled by the law. A bright example of this is “Prosperous Armenia Party” whose activities are financed by the charity foundation of Gagik Tsarukian, Head of the mentioned party.

Amalya Kostanyan, Head of the NGO, estimated the amendments to the Electoral Code positive but not sufficient. She also noted that until no program punishing the riggers existed, one should not hope for progress in electoral system.

The parties should spend no more that 60 million drams during the campaigns, while the “Prosperous Armenia Party” and the “Republican Party of Armenia” exceeded this limit. According to the monitoring, the “RPA” spent 79.1 million drams during the campaign, whereas, the “Prosperous Armenia Party” - 129.6 million drams. In Amalya Kostanyan’s opinion, concealed advertisements or using administrative resources are serious violations.

“We used as a basis only official information and counted by the lowest tariffs for preparing the report. We believed the singers who announced that they supported a party free of charge. We also believed some parties which assured that transport expenses, payments of some employees of temporary party headquarters were on humanitarian basis”, says Amalya Kostanyan.