There is still a chance for reaching an agreement

Yerkir.am
July 21, 2006

In this politically peaceful summer period when no one seems to
have any desire to work the political forces in the parliament are
engaged in heated debates of the CoE Venice Commission’s opinion on
the amendments to the Electoral Code.

The fifth session of these discussions will be held today. National
Assembly’ s ARF faction leader Hrayr Karapetian presents his opinion
on the results of the previous discussions.

The CoE Venice Commission’s comments on the amendments to the Electoral
Code are divided into three main groups. According to Karapetian,
the first group includes amendments that the VC welcomes considering
that they contribute to free and fair elections.

These amendments include the proposal to place the ballots into
envelopes, proposals about making the punitive measures in case of
electoral violations stricter in the Criminal Code. There are some
amendments for which the VC has requested further clarifications from
the National Assembly.

The Commission has noted that some of its proposals were not included
into the draft amendments and believes these proposals should be
discussed as well. For instance, finger inking, mobile ballot boxes,
video taping in the voting site and the issue of people who cannot
vote at the voting site should also be further discussed.

"Our factions believes that all proposals related to the amendment
of the Electoral Code that will contribute to the transparency of
electoral mechanisms and democratic elections should be adopted. The
question is that there are issues that should be further discussed
based on the specific situation in Armenia. We will discuss these
issues with the Venice Commission again.

For instance, the issue of mobile ballot boxes. We have not
included this in the amendments since it can result in a number
of violations. Meanwhile, the Venice Commission believes that the
absence of mobile ballot boxes will deprive people who cannot vote
at the voting site of their voters’ rights.

The finger inking also may arise some problems taking into
consideration our people’s psychology. The question of video taping
is under discussion. If we manage to find some mechanisms to insure
technically the implementation of these proposals while at the same
time ensuring the secrecy of the vote, this also can be applied,"
Karapetian noted.

As to developing a mechanism for recalling electoral commission
members, the National Unity party insists on this proposal. Meanwhile,
the Venice Commission believes this proposal should be excluded. "We
believe that the recalling mechanism should be excluded. The opposition
believes that the recalling mechanism can be used under certain
time frames.

This issue is also under discussion. Overall, we hope that it will be
possible to reach a point when all political forces will come to an
agreement, of course going for compromises on certain issues so that
both the pro-governmental and opposition political forces sign under
the amendments to the Electoral Code to be discussed in the National
Assembly. There are still chances that we will manage to do this,"
Karapetian noted.

When the political forces come to a final agreement the questions
related to the amendments will be discussed with representatives of
the Venice Commission in mid August.

As to the proportion of majoritarian and proportional votes, ARF has
always supported 100% proportional vote. However, Karapetian noted, if
we see today that there is no agreement on this issue today, we will
try to shift the proportion between majoritarian and proportional
votes in favor of the proportional – 75% proportional and 25%
majoritarian. This issue should be decided based on a consensus.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress