TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHES PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

Noyan Tapan
May 31 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 31, NOYAN TAPAN. "60 mln drams (nearly 171 thousand
dollars) permitted for preelection agitation was surpassed by RPA
and Bargavach Hayastan parties, so, respectively, these parties spent
79.1 mln and 129.6 mln drams." This was mentioned in the preliminary
report of monitoring of parliamentary elections of Transparency
International-Armenia Center for Regional Development.

At the May 31 press conference dedicated to presentation of monitoring
results Center Head Amalia Kostanian said that another parties entering
National Assembly spent: ARFD 50.7 mln drams, OYP 33.1 mln drams and
Zharangutiun 24.0 mln drams, much less money was spent by another
parties not having entered the National Assembly.

In A. Kostanian’s words, the organization registered many violations
not only on the day of elections, but also at the preelection
stage. Abuse of administrative, transport resource, agitation
violations, etc. took place in the preelection period. He attached
a special importance to the circumstance that an atmosphere of fear
was formed on the day of elections. In particular, the organization
received signals that many people had been instructed for whom to
vote. Many signals were received during the monitoring about bribes
given to voters. However, in Kostanian’s words, as the eye-witnesses
were afraid to give evidence, it was impossible to officially register
and calculate such "expenditures" of parties.

To recap, Transparency International-Armenia Center for Regional
Development has been implementing monitoring of financing parties’
preelection agitation and abuse of administrative resource at
parliamentary elections since 2006 November in cities of Yerevan,
Gyumri and Vanadzor. The program is financed by Soros Institute of
Open Society.