PROPORTIONAL VOTING IS THE SOLUTION, FORCES OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT STATE
By Karine Mangassarian

Yerkir.am
August 25, 2006

We will be having parliamentary and presidential elections in the
coming two years. There is still a lot of time before the elections
but the pre-election campaigns have already started.

New parties are created as always before the elections. Before
any elections, the Electoral Code appears in the midst of heated
debates. What can we do to have free and fair elections that would
correspond to European standards?

Europeans try to help us with this issue. They advise us as to how
to form electoral commissions, whether or not to ink the voters’
fingers, whether or not to have video cameras in the voting sites.

There are very many questions and the political forces in the
parliament were discussing the Venice Commission’s recommendations
on the amendments to the Electoral Code before the parliament left
for its summer recess.

There were some disagreements between the political forces. As
National Assembly Speaker Tigran Torossian informed this week no
final agreement has been reached on five articles of the Electoral
Code. One of the disagreements concerns the debate over proportional
and majoritarian voting.

The majority of political forces in the country insist that the only
solution to relieve the extreme "politicization" in Armenia is full
transition to proportional voting. Those opposing this approach note
that there might be people who do not share the ideologies of any of
the parties but want to be in the parliament and protect the rights
of their electorate.

A draft set of amendments to the Electoral Code developed by NA deputy
Victor Dallakian will be discussed in the National Assembly in addition
to the existing Electoral Code amendments. Dallakian proposes to hold
elections only with proportional voting even though he was elected
to the parliament under majoritarian vote.

Political forces outside the parliament also believe that majoritarian
voting cannot contribute to a healthy political atmosphere in the
country. It cannot contribute to the formation of the National Assembly
as a political body.

Leader of the Armenian Liberal Progressive Party Hovhannes
Hovhannissian notes that majoritarian voting system is no longer used
in other countries.

He believes majoritarian voting does not contribute to the proper
formation of the political atmosphere at the same time claiming that
the support voters show towards deputies elected under majoritarian
vote directly depends on the volume of the election bribe which has
nothing to do with politics.

Meanwhile, ideology should be the tool of politicians, something
which we cannot observe in this case.

Leader of National Conciliation Party Aram Harutyunian also supports
proportional voting system. However, he notes that the Constitution
states that every person has the right to be elected even if he/she
is not a member of any party.

Therefore, Harutyunian believes that if a fully proportional voting
system is used this constitutional right would be violated. Harutyunian
believes ensuring equal conditions for all parties is crucial to
ensure fair and free elections. He proposes that members of all
parties participating in the elections should be included into the
electoral commissions instead of only proxies.

This proposal might be worth discussing but this might be impossible
in a situation when several dozens of parties want to participate in
the elections.

Leader of the New Communist Party Yura Manukian assures he has
always supported the fully proportional voting. "We are for a
political parliament. There should be only proportional voting,
in other words the voters should make their choice based on the
parties’ ideologies. The vision of the country’s development should
be formed based on parties’ ideologies and not arbitrary will of
certain individuals," Manukian states.

"The situation we have observed with the majoritarian voting leaves no
room for support for majoritarian system," Manukian notes. Commenting
on the situation when someone might have the support of the voters
even if he/she is not a member of any party Manukian joked, "If someone
wants to be elected under majoritarian vote because he does not share
the views of any political parties this means that we simply don’t
know the name of that party."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress