Ugly mechanism of CEC formed in Armenia
The formation of the Central Election Commission shows that the authorities' "strong statements" about their willingness to hold free and transparent elections are pure fiction, says the head of Heritage parliamentary group Stepan Safaryan.
The edited version of the Electoral Code excludes liabilities between the upper and lower sections of election commissions.
"An ugly mechanism of the CEC has been formed by the "perfect" model of the authorities and the Armenian National Congress (HAK). And now precinct committees will be formed in compliance with the demand of the Heritage and ARF-Dashnaktsutyun," said Safaryan.
The Heritage representative says there was a period when HAK's position coincided with that of the authorities.
"Unfortunately, this coincidence allowed the authorities to create a process where the upper level can blame the lower one and the vice versa. And we [the parliamentary opposition] cannot control the activity of upper bodies and prevent them from rigging elections due to lack of resources."
Safaryan says the authorities are trying to show that the legislation is imperfect and they are doing their best to improve it. On the other hand, they have reasons to justify their actions.
"They proudly declared that they focused only on HAK's position saying they were unable to consider the approaches of all opposition forces," said Safaryan.
The liabilities of the newly-formed Central Election Commission come into effect on July 14.
On July 11, Ombudsman Karen Andreasyan named spokesperson for the CEC Chairman Tatevik Ohanyan, economist Armen Smbatyan and lawyer Artak Meliksetyan as CEC members.
The Chamber of Advocates nominated Georgi Martirosyan and Silva Markosyan for the position. The latter headed Precinct 10 during the January 2010 elections in which HAK member Nikol Pashinyan allegedly lost to his rival from the National Concord Party [Leader Artashes Geghamyan] Ara Simonyan.
