DASHNAKTSUTYUN HAS NOT JOINED COALITION

Lragir
Oct 26 2007
Armenia

The Republican Party and the Bargavach Hayastan Party have set up
a working group for amendments to the election code which the ARF
Dashnaktsutyun did not join, the head of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun
faction told reporters on October 26. "Dashnaktsutyun did not agree
to all the points. This is one of the reasons why we haven’t joined
the group because we have set forward proposals which are currently
under negotiation with the political forces," Hrair Karapetyan says.

According to him, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun has invited all the forces
which had not been elected to parliament to come up with their
approaches toward the election code. Paruir Hairikyan, Artashes
Geghamyan, Shavarsh Kocharyan and the Ramkavar Party have responded to
this invitation. "Our stance is the following. There are principles
which should be set down in the package of amendments. The first is
the approach toward the staffs of the commissions. We think it is
high time that the staff of the commissions arouse no controversy. In
other words, why the president appoints this many members, why the
judicial system appoints that many members, why the opposition
is not represented sufficiently. We propose that an authorized
body be responsible for the election commissions, in other words,
a professional commission, as well as granting more powers to the
proxies of the political parties. Secondly, the representatives of
the judicial power who are also considered as representatives of the
government, no doubt there are comments, should be fewer," Hrair
Karapetyan says. Besides, considering the comments on the recent
parliamentary election, there was double voting, people voted in
different places with the same passport, Dashnaktsutyun has offered a
solution. "Put a stamp in the passport of the voter on voting. With
this stamp the voter cannot vote twice. The other approach is that
after the voting the list of people who have voted could be pinned
up outside the polling station. It is meant to enable people to find
out if someone else has voted instead of them," Hrair Karapetyan says.

According to him, Dashnaktsutyun has other approaches toward the
amendments to the election code but the main principles are the ones
which are now being discussed with the political forces.