U.S. TRAINS ARMENIAN OFFICIALS TO COMBAT ELECTION FRAUD
By Ruben Meloyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Feb 27 2007
The U.S. embassy in Yerevan organized on Tuesday a training course
for dozens of Armenian officials, which is aimed at preventing and
combating fraud in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The three-day seminar is attended by some 70 judges, prosecutors,
senior police officers, election commission members, and state human
rights officials. They will be trained to by officials from the U.S.
Department of Justice and the FBI as well as law-enforcement officials
from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
"The participation of the Armenian government in this seminar
demonstrates that they acknowledge that there are problems, that they
are willing to take them on," the U.S. charge d’affairs, Anthony
Godfrey, told journalists. "The seminar is part of my government’s
democracy promotion strategy," he said, referring to a $6 million
program designed to foster proper conduct of the May 12 elections.
A separate statement by the U.S. embassy said that six Armenian
prosecutors and two members of the Central Election Commission will
be sent to the United States for "additional training on combating
election fraud."
U.S. officials have said that a clean vote is a key condition for the
provision of $235 million in additional U.S. economic assistance to
Armenia. The Armenian government has assured Washington and other
Western government that it will do its best to rule out serious
vote irregularities. However, its domestic political opponents have
dismissed such assurances, saying that the authorities will try to
cling to power at any cost.
Addressing the seminar, Godfrey drew the participants’ attention
to a widespread skepticism about the freedom and fairness of the
elections. "Recent polling shows that while most Armenians plan to
vote in the upcoming elections, they lack confidence that the process
will be fair," he said. "Part of this lack of confidence comes from
their belief that election fraud goes unpunished here. Vigilant
enforcement and prosecution of election fraud will deter future
fraudulent behavior."
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the
Council of Europe have repeatedly urged the Armenian authorities to
punish individuals guilty of ballot box stuffing and other serious
fraud. But nobody is known to have been prosecuted for such violations.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
