ACCORDING TO GAREGIN AZARIAN, PREELECTION PROCESS IS WITHIN LAW

Noyan Tapan
Feb 5, 2008

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 5, NOYAN TAPAN. As of February 5, there has been no
deviation from the schedule of the RA presidential elections, there
is no complaint about it, either. Garegin Azarian, the Chairman of
the RA Central Electoral Commission (CEC), stated at the February 5
press conference.

G. Azarian also said that the retraining process of more than 15
thousand members of polling station commissions is underway at
present. The retraining is held with the assistance of the IFES
Armenian branch.

Retraining of 1050 members of polling station commissions (55% of all
members) has been finished from January 30 up to now. The training
is envisaged to be finished on February 12.

According to the declarations presented (up to January 31 inclusive),
Serge Sargsian has the largest preelection fund, 69m 550 thousand
drams. The other funds had: Vahan Hovhannisian’s fund 45 500
thousand drams, Artur Baghdasarian’s 21 960 thousand drams, Levon
Ter-Petrosian’s 16 286 500 drams, Artashes Geghamian’s 14 600 thousand
drams, Vazgen Manukian’s 2 412 thousand drams, Tigran Karapetian’s
600 thousand drams, Aram Haroutiunian’s 190 thousand drams. Vahan
Hovhannisian has made the largest expenditures, 44 144 thousand
drams, Serge Sargsian is in the second place, 26 284 780 drams,
Artur Baghdasarian’s expenditures made 21 941 800 drams, Artashes
Geghamian’s 14 364 thouand drams, Levon Ter-Petrosian’s 14m 5 thousand
drams, Vazgen Manukian’s 1 398 733 drams, Tigran Karapetian’s 580
thousand drams, Aram Haroutiunian has entirely expended the money,
and Arman Melikian has no money and has not expended it.

The CEC Chairman said that the candidates can withdraw their
candidatures by February 9, 18:00, he called them for informing them
about it earlier in case of having such an intention for CEC to be
able to organize printing of special ballot-papers for blind people.

G. Azarian sees no consequence of taking passport data from citizens:
in his words, even after providing the passport data a voter will have
no ostacle in the way of freely expressing his will in the voting
cabin. According to the CEC Chairman, the Commission received the
information about collecting passport data by tax bodies on February 5,
if it is confirmed, it will be sent to the Prosecutor’s Office.

G. Azarian guarantees that it is impossible to organize control over
the voting process: if there are cases when a voter shows for whom he
has voted, the commission members will take away that ballot-paper,
will ask him to vote again, and the previous ballot-paper will
registered as wrongly filled.

CEC will also study the information about carrying out agitation
for a candidate by the leader of Ararat Patriarchal Diocese: it is
prohibited to religious organizations to carry out agitation.