Statement of the Armenian National Congress
"As expected, the illegitimate regime put its infernal apparatus to work in the early morning of May 31.
Thousands of buses and taxis transported people to the polling stations starting early in the morning and thousands from different cities and residential areas illegally participated in the vote.
There were also voters from the Akhalkalak region of Georgia and voting bribes were distributed to the masses.
Bandits stationed at the polling stations impeded the participation of thousands of citizens.
There were assaults on journalists and Armenian National Congress proxies. They beat them, threw them out of the polling stations and the journalists' cameras were stolen. Observers, both local and international, were thrown out of polling stations and were not able to fulfill their obligations. One of the members of the commission appointed by the opposition was kidnapped from the polling station.
The bandit groups entered polling stations and stuffed the ballot-boxes. As a rule, the police did not respond to such cases and in some cases, they even supported and participated in electoral fraud.
Open or uncontrolled voting took place in various polling stations. There were cases when guns were used and there were injured people. Proxies and commission members were talked into bribes throughout the day.
There were many cases when the presidents of commissions refused to register the reports in the register and the electoral commissions of the precincts refused to accept the complaints brought up by the proxies.
A number of polling stations were surrounded by special squadrons and in some cases they were inside the polling station. Many voters preferred not to participate in the vote in this environment.
All types of fraud, particularly assaults against proxies and the evident stuffing were registered in the Malatia-Sebastia district where stamps, ballots and ballot-boxes were stolen from the polling stations. The package of ballots for the Armenian National Congress was also stolen during the counting of the votes. The situation here was under the control of criminals and there was no election whatsoever.
All criminals were involved in the fraud and terrorism with support from the high-ranking officials. The state apparatus, including the police, the army, the pension fund, ministries, local self-governing bodies and others, as well as huge amounts of money from the state budget were used for electoral fraud, threats to the people and especially voting bribes.
The Armenian National Congress announces that it does not accept the results of the May 31 elections for Council of Elders and will not tolerate the regime's ongoing actions aimed at breaching the will of the people. The Congress will dispute the results of the elections and will continue its struggle to place the demand for head of the current regime Serzh Sargsyan's resignation as its main issue," as stated in the ANC statement.
