ARMENIAN POLITICAL FORCES HAVEN’T CHANGED THEIR OPINION ABOUT DRAFT REFORMS A YEAR AFTER CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM IN ARMENIA

ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 27 2006

A year has passed since the draft constitutional reforms were adopted
in Armenia. Even a year later, the political forces have not changed
their opinion about the draft constitutional amendments. The opposition
keeps on thinking that the draft amendments passed with mass violations
and the referendum didn’t reflect the electorate’s will, and the
ruling coalition is convinced that the constitutional referendum was
call of the times and the adoption of amendments introduced essential
positive changes in the public and political life of the country.

Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Deputy Chairman of the Republican
Party Tigran Torosyan told journalists that the constitutional reforms
had an exclusive importance for the country from the democratic point
of view. He noted that one shouldn’t dissemble the positive tendencies
after the constitutional referendum, and it is simply unreasonable to
speak of the voting fraud. He stressed that the draft reforms were
approved at the referendum, and the items of the document should be
implemented now.

T.Torosyan also emphasized that the parliamentary elections in
2007 should correspond to international standards. He qualified the
opposition’s statements about early parliamentary and presidential
elections as meaningless.

Speaking of the constitutional referendum, Grigor Harutyunyan, the
Secretary of the "Justice" opposition bloc, once again said that
the referendum passed with numerous violations, no more than 200-250
thousand people took part in it, but the authorities assert that 1.5
mln voters participated in the plebiscite.