"PROSPEROUS ARMENIA PARTY" AND "REPUBLICAN PARTY OF ARMENIA" SPENT MUCH MORE
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[08:32 pm] 31 May, 2007
"The Central Electoral Commission does not observe activities
carried our before the official campaign launch as camping
activities. This certifies the deficiency of the Electoral Code,
which does not define what a campaign is", this was registered by the
Center for Regional Development/ Transparency International Armenia
NGO. The Organization carried out a monitoring on pre-election period
financing and administrative resource abuse during 2007 parliamentary
elections. The program was implemented in Yerevan, Gjumri and Vanadzor
cities in Armenia.
According to the Organization, another defect of the law is the
financing the activities of this or that political figure or a party
which is not controlled by the law. A bright example of this is
"Prosperous Armenia Party" whose activities are financed by the
charity foundation of Gagik Tsarukian, Head of the mentioned party.
Amalya Kostanyan, Head of the NGO, estimated the amendments to the
Electoral Code positive but not sufficient. She also noted that until
no program punishing the riggers existed, one should not hope for
progress in electoral system.
The parties should spend no more that 60 million drams during the
campaigns, while the "Prosperous Armenia Party" and the "Republican
Party of Armenia" exceeded this limit. According to the monitoring,
the "RPA" spent 79.1 million drams during the campaign, whereas, the
"Prosperous Armenia Party" – 129.6 million drams.
In Amalya Kostanyan’s opinion, concealed advertisements or using
administrative resources are serious violations.
"We used as a basis only official information and counted by the
lowest tariffs for preparing the report. We believed the singers who
announced that they supported a party free of charge. We also believed
some parties which assured that transport expenses, payments of some
employees of temporary party headquarters were on humanitarian basis",
says Amalya Kostanyan.