Public TV of Armenia
February 26, 2008

Armenian president rejects opposition’s vote-rigging complaints

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan has said that the 19 February
presidential election was the best in the country’s history. In
remarks broadcast on Armenian TV on 26 February, Kocharyan rejected
statements by opposition candidate and former President Ter-Petrosyan
that the election was rigged, saying that the complaints reflected an
"absence of political culture". The following is the text of report
by Armenian Public TV on 26 February:

[Presenter] The president of the republic said six days is long
enough to sober up and that the patience of the guardians of public
order may run out.

[Kocharyan, in Armenian] This election was the best in Armenia’s
history. There are no countries where elections take place without
violations. The important thing is the volume and the content of
these violations. What kind of violations were they? Were they
systematic, or were they just cases that were not organized by a
single centre. There is also a legal process for appealing against
the results of an election. We have extremely interesting results
here. There were appeals for a recount of votes at 156 or 159 polling
stations. A recount was carried out at 135 polling stations, and we
had a serious problem at only one polling station. The chairman of
this polling station has been arrested, and the case will soon be
sent to court. The main problem at other places was related to the
voting mark, whether the tail of the mark was out of the box or
within it. This shows that in reality the election was held at a
proper level, the count was done correctly, and if there are doubts,
there is another entity to which the opposition can apply, the
Constitutional Court. I would also like to add that at 86 out of the
135 polling stations where a recount was carried out, the recount was
based on complaints by Levon Ter-Petrosyan [former Armenian
President] and Artur Baghdasaryan [the leader of the Orinats Yerkir
(Law-Governed Country Party]. So it is not substantiated, these
complaints are not substantiated, these suspicions. And I would like
to reiterate that, yes, it is the absence of political culture.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress