ARMENIAN OPPOSITION LEADER NOTES UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITIES IN ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Mediamax news agency
10 May 07

Yerevan, 10 May: The leader of the Orinats Yerkir (Law-Governed
Country) Party [OYP], Artur Baghdasaryan, said in Yerevan today that
if the results of the parliamentary election are rigged, he will be
in the first ranks of protesters.

Speaking at a news conference in Yerevan today, Baghdasaryan said:
"On the whole, we are concerned about the election campaign that is
coming to an end because we have been deprived of equal access to
airtime and the opportunity to place our billboards in the streets."

The party leader said that "airtime is full of reports about
the election rallies of the Republican Party of Armenia, the
Prosperous Armenia Party and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation –
Dashnaktsutyun", Mediamax reports.

Baghdasaryan said that dirty technologies have been used against
the Orinats Yerkir Party, while the party itself is "engaged only in
presenting its election manifesto and is not trying to blacken anyone
and gain dividends from this".

The OYP leader said that "bribes offered to voters in Armenia have
taken on a mass scale, but no-one has been held criminally liable
for this".

Baghdasaryan condemned the dispersal of the "peaceful demonstration
of Karabakh red berets" on the evening of 9 May.

He said that the OYP will be closely following the authenticity of
lists of voters, the elections and the process of vote-counting. Over
6,000 proxies of the party will be present at polling stations,
while the process of vote-counting will be filmed in more than 500
polling stations, Baghdasaryan said.

After the close of the polls, the OYP will make a political statement.

"We are ready to recognize the results of fair elections, but will
say a decisive ‘no’ to falsifiers and election crimes," Baghdasaryan
said. He called on the media and local and international observers
to closely follow the process of vote-counting.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress