We have a good Election Code; but do we have political will?

Yerkir/arm
May 20, 2005

By Karine Mangasarian

Yesterday the National Assembly passed the draft law on amendment of
the Election Code. To what extent do these amendments take into
consideration the requirements of the Venice Commission of the Council
of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly? We asked secretary of ARF’s
parliamentary faction Hrayr Karapetian to comment on this question.

`In the case of the Constitution we should use any relevant
international experience while at the same time taking into
consideration the local, national circumstances. In the case of the
Election Code we should not start from scratch but should use the
existing international experience. Our faction and the other parties
of the coalition have tried to include all the recommendations made by
the Venice Commission into this draft,’ Karapetian commented.

As an advantage of the amendment, Karapetian pointed out that a
clear-cut mechanism of responsibilities has been defined. `In the
past, we used to have many problems connected with the manipulations
of the voting lists. The present draft clearly defines who will be
responsible for the voting lists. The issues of responsibility and
punitive measures have been treated very seriously in the draft,’
Karapetyan said.

He emphasized the importance of training the members of the election
committee since many violations occurred in the previous elections
because the committee members did not know the laws well enough. The
present amendments significantly weaken the president’s position since
the latter willhave only one representative in the committee instead
of the previous three.

Answering the question whether ARF was satisfied with the
proportionality of 41-90 for formation of the parliament Karapetian
noted, `It is veryimportant for us that a step was made towards
creating a 100 percent political body.

We reached a consensus as a result of long negotiations and we see it
as progress towards formation of the parliament based on proportional
voting since most of the violations occur in the case of majority
voting. However, this does not mean that violations will be eliminated
in case of proportional voting. Therefore, every party must be
concerned with its reputation and must refrain from manipulations in
the election processes’.

Elections to the local self-government bodies will be held in near
future. It is possible that the new Election Code will be enacted by
that time. Commenting on this, Karapetian noted that adoption of the
law in the third reading is a matter of time but it will be better if
the coming local government elections are held with the amended
Election Code.

Even though the present Election Code is a result of political
compromise it cannot serve its purpose unless political will is
exerted during the elections and the people’s trust towards elections
is restored, Karapetian concluded.