CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION CHANGED THE LAW?

LRAGIR.AM
14:47:42 – 21/04/2009

The representative of the Armenian National congress ticket for
Mayor Elections, law defender, Ruben Torosyan stated on April
21 that while defining the terms for the Yerevan Mayor election,
the Central election commission roughly violated the Article 2 of
the Armenian Election Code. The point is that the term decided by
the CEC includes a thesis according to which those people who are
not registered in Yerevan have the right for voting at the Yerevan
Mayor election. According to the CEC decision, these citizens may
apply to the head of their commune 21 days before the election or
to the authorized body 15 days before the election and will have the
right to participate in the Yerevan Mayor election. In other words,
a citizen of Alaverdi may vote for Yerevan Mayor.

Ruben Torosyan states that the Article 2 on which the rest of articles
of the Election Code are based defines who has the right to participate
in the local self-government elections. "We open the Article 2 and
read that Armenian citizens of 18 years old have the right for voting
and in case of local non-government election everyone, who has been
registered in the given commune for at least 1 year and factually
lives there, may vote.

It is written very clearly and every citizen may read and learn
that in order to participate in local non-government election,
including Yerevan, one should have a 1-year registration there",
says Ruben Torosyan.

According to him, the CEC, "no one knows why, explained this Article
in October". "They explained that the second part of that phrase of
the Article 2 concerns only those who don’t have citizenship, not
the others", said Ruben Torosyan noting that the Central election
Commission in fact changes completely the Article 2 of the Election
Code, but it does no have any right for it.

The Armenian National Congress applied to the Administrative Court
for this breach but the court rejected the application. And, after,
the HAK applied to the Constitutional Court.

Ruben Torosyan states that this question is related to the right for
running in the election too and he recalled the fact that though
being registered in the Shenik Village of the Baghramyan region,
Artsvik Minasyan has obtained the right for running for Yerevan Mayor.