ELECTION WINNERS ACCUSED OF BREACHING CAMPAIGN SPENDING CAPS
By Hovannes Shoghikian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 31 2007
The Republican and Prosperous Armenia parties, the two main winners
of the May 12 parliamentary elections, spent more on their election
campaigns than is allowed by law, Armenia’s leading anti-corruption
watchdog said on Thursday.
The Armenian Election Code limits campaign spending by a single party
or bloc to 60 million drams ($170,000). The governing Republican
Party (HHK) and the pro-presidential Prosperous Armenia (BHK) have
been accused by their rivals of exceeding these ceilings. The latter
pointed to hundreds of expensive billboards and banners and many hours
of televised commercials that promoted the two parties in the run-up
to the elections.
The Center for Regional Development (CRD), the Armenian affiliate of
the global anti-corruption organization Transparency International,
gave weight to these allegations as it presented the results of its
campaign expenditure monitoring conducted in Armenia’s three largest
cities: Yerevan, Gyumri, and Vanadzor. The HHK and the BHK were found
to have spent 79 million drams and 129.6 million drams respectively in
those cities alone. They were followed by the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (50.7 million drams) and the opposition Orinats Yerkir
(33 million drams) and Zharangutyun (24 million) drams parties.
"These are only conservative estimates," said Amalia Kostanian, the
CRD chairwoman. "We did not take into account many other campaign
expenditures. Also, we used only official prices [of printing and
advertising services] and other information in cases where they
were available. In all other cases, we used minimum rates in our
calculations."
Kostanian said the CRD calculations are also based on the assumption
that the BHK and the HHK spent nothing on their several hundred
campaign offices across Armenia and pop music concerts that preceded
many of their campaign rallies. "We trusted those local singers that
said they are supporting one or another party free of charge," she
told a news conference.
Both parties, which will control the vast majority of seats in
parliament, denied the claims. "The Republican Party did not surpass
the 60 million-dram limit and conducted its campaign in accordance
with Armenian law," said Eduard Sharmazanov, the HHK spokesman.
The BHK spokesman Baghdasar Mherian claimed that the party led by
Gagik Tsarukian, the country’s reputedly wealthiest businessman,
spent only about 46 million drams on its election campaign. "I don’t
know what methodology that organized used," he said.
Under the Election Code, the HHK, the BHK and all other election
contenders have to submit detailed expenditure reports to a Central
Election Commission (CEC) division tasked with ensuring their
compliance with the campaign funding caps. The head of the division,
Ara Harutiunian, told RFE/RL that it has received and is now looking
into those reports. He refused to comment on the findings of the
anti-graft watchdog.
In a separate report, the CRD said it did not take into account vote
bribes allegedly handed out by the pro-establishment parties. "During
the project implementation, there were many people reporting instances
of vote bribes throughout the country to the monitoring team," it
said. "However, citizens were scared to be a witness of such crimes,
and it was not possible to record the reported bribery cases and
calculate how much was spent by parties for those ‘expenses."