U.S. CRITICAL OF ARMENIAN VOTE, ARRESTS
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Feb 29 2008

The United States has criticized the Armenian government for its
handling of last week’s presidential election and expressed serious
concern at the ensued arrests of several top allies of the main
opposition candidate, former President Levon Ter-Petrosian. It has
also urged the authorities in Yerevan not to use force against tens
of thousands of his supporters demonstrating against the official
vote results.

In a statement issued late Thursday, the U.S. mission to the OSCE
headquarters in Vienna said Washington is "very concerned" about
the arrests and the reported closure of Ter-Petrosian’s campaign
offices across Armenia. "These kinds of actions are not consistent
with democratic principles, and we urge the Government of Armenia
to uphold the rule of law and international democratic standards in
proceeding on these cases," it said.

The authorities ordered the crackdown on the Ter-Petrosian-led
opposition in response to its non-stop street protests in Yerevan
which the former Armenian leader hopes will force a re-run of what he
regards as a fraudulent vote. President Robert Kocharian has accused
his predecessor of seeking to return to power "by illegal means"
and threatened "sharp" government measures.

The U.S. statement submitted to the OSCE’s Permanent Council in
Vienna welcomed the fact that the authorities have so far refrained
from using force against tens of thousands of protesters. "This
peaceful exercise of the freedom of assembly, coupled with effective,
non-violent crowd management, is a notable achievement and a sign of
democratic progress," it said. "We call on all sides to ensure that
this peaceful situation continues."

The U.S. mission further stated that the February 19 vote was "far
from perfect" even if it was found by Western observers to have been
administered "mostly in line" with democratic standards. "Although the
administration of the election procedure was mostly in line with OSCE
standards, key OSCE commitments, regarding the planning and execution
of democratic elections, remain unmet in Armenia as noted in the OSCE
[observers’] preliminary findings," it said. "We call on the Government
and people of Armenia to address these concerns."

The statement pointed to instances of ballot stuffing, vote-buying
multiple voting and voter intimidation reported by Armenian and foreign
observers. It also cited "disturbing irregularities" reported during
the recount of ballots in some polling stations. "Because of such real
and perceived irregularities, we remain concerned that the level of
trust among the Armenian electorate in their election process remains
dangerously low," added the statement.

The U.S. State Department’s initial reaction to the conduct of the
election was clearly more positive, with a department spokesman
congratulating Armenians on their "active and competitive" election.

Ter-Petrosian welcomed the latest U.S. statement as he addressed tens
of thousands of supporters who gathered in Yerevan’s Liberty Square
for a tenth consecutive day. "This is a serious approach which proves
that the United States does not trust these elections," he said.

Ter-Petrosian also renewed his strong verbal attacks on the OSCE
observers, accusing them of applying "double standards." "They can
turn a blind eye on things that would be considered immoral and
illegal in their countries," he charged.

Geert Ahrens, head of the long-term observer mission deployed in
Armenia by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human
Rights, rejected the criticism as "unfair." In an interview with
RFE/RL, he also said that the mission’s preliminary assessment of the
election conduct given on February 20 was not as positive as has been
widely construed in and outside the country. "When we say ‘mostly,’
this is not a compliment," he said.

Ahrens stressed in particular that the presidential ballot was
more flawed than last May’s Armenian parliamentary elections which
the OSCE described as "largely" democratic. "I would say ‘largely’
is 80 percent to 90 percent, while ‘mostly’ can be 51 percent or 75
percent but not more," he said. "This preliminary statement clearly
says that the overall quality of these elections was not as good as
the one held a year ago."

The German diplomat also echoed the U.S. concerns about the
post-election crackdown on the opposition. "We do observe all these
events and we are discussing this with the authorities, including the
public prosecutor," he said. "Our legal analyst is following these
procedures very closely. We would not do this if we had no concern."

According to the government-controlled Central Election Commission,
Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian won the election outright with
52.8 percent of some 1.63 million votes which it says were cast by
Armenians. The more detailed data released by the CEC show that he
avoided a risky run-off with Ter-Petrosian thanks to 242 of Armenia’s
1,923 polling stations where he polled more than 80 percent of the
vote. The total number of votes cast for the prime minister there
stands at approximately 82,000, or nearly twice the margin of his
first-round victory.

In 75 of those precincts, Sarkisian’s vote tally exceeded a staggering
90 percent, sharply contrasting with the suspiciously poor performance
of Ter-Petrosian and another major opposition candidate, Artur
Baghdasarian. The CEC gave the two men 21.5 percent and 16 percent of
the national vote respectively. But paradoxically, they got no votes
at all in more than 40 mostly rural polling stations, even though
they did relatively well in some of the neighboring precincts.

Ter-Petrosian, for example, won 640 votes in one polling station in
the electoral district No. 23 of the eastern Gegharkunik region but
did not get a single vote in seven other local precincts. "In those
precincts, we either had proxies forced out or had no proxies at all,"
said Artak Zeynalian, a senior member of the ex-president’s campaign
team. "It is obvious that blatant falsifications were done there."

Ahrens said are OSCE observers are "analyzing" the highly uneven
distribution of votes. "We have of course seen that there is a number
of polling stations with improbable results," he said, adding that
the mission will raise the issue in its next post-election report
due next week.