Armenia’s benevolent parties
The "Choice is Yours" monitoring mission has revealed the following: "Cheap Vacuum Cleaner for Vote".
"They called and for some reason said they would provide a cheap vacuum cleaner for a vote," says President of the "Choice is Yours" NGO Harutyun Hambardzumyan.
The head of the monitoring mission can't say which party had offered a cheap vacuum cleaner.
"They started with that and didn't even say, for example, how many people they were and how many of them were adults."
The "Choice is Yours" monitoring group has already recorded several violations that are primarily similar to the violations that have been registered during all previous elections.
The organization's representative Hasmik Sargsyan indicated the active involvement of reputable figures of the district in the elections and the political parties' influence on voters' will.
However, the monitoring group still doesn't have any information regarding bribes. The organization, which has more than 3,600 monitors, receives information through the following mechanism: "Talking to long-term monitors and following the media".
Journalists asked why the violations that the organization records during all elections weren't taken into account in the Electoral Code. According to Harutyun Hambardzumyan, the reason for that is because there is no differentiation between charity and electoral bribe. Electoral bribes are mainly considered products distributed to voters either on the day of the vote or after.
"That is not monitored on other days...Instead, it is viewed as part of the election campaign," said Hambardzumyan.
Hambardzumyan also said who was involved in passing out electoral bribes and calling it charity.
"Our organization views Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) and "Country of Law" Party (OEK) as the parties that do charities."
