ARMENIAN GROUP GEARS UP FOR VOTE MONITORING
By Hovannes Shoghikian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
March 6 2007

Armenia’s largest election-monitoring organization said on Tuesday that
it will observe the May 12 parliamentary elections with a record-high
number of volunteers.

The group, It’s Your Choice (IYC), plans to deploy observers in
virtually all of the country’s 2,000 or so polling stations on
voting day. It was able to cover only between 60 and 70 percent of
the precincts during previous Armenian elections.

According to the IYC chairman, Harutiun Hambartsumian, the effort
will require the mobilization of as many as 4,000 people committed to
fostering democratic change in Armenia. The number of IYC observers
has been considerably lower in the past.

Speaking to journalists, Hambartsumian said his Western-funded
organization hopes that the forthcoming elections will mark a major
improvement over the previous polls that were marred by serious
irregularities reported by both domestic and international observers.

"Unfortunately, up until now we have reported more shortcomings than
positive things," he said.

Hambartsumian expressed concern about some of the recently passed
amendments to Armenia’s electoral code that were supposed to
complicate fraud. He was particularly critical of a provision allowing
various-level commissions to meet and make decisions without a quorum.

The IYC’s most recent vote monitoring report came in the wake of the
disputed constitutional referendum of November 2005. The 12-page report
concluded that the vote failed short of democratic standards because
of "serious violations of the electoral process, illegal voting and
especially ballot box stuffing."

The Armenian elections will also be monitored by over 300 Western
observers representing the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe. Their findings will be particularly important for the
international legitimacy of the vote. The first long-term OSCE
observers are expected to arrive in Yerevan next week.