From `civilized’ to `shameful’: The assessment of local observers
31.05.2009 19:54

Lena Badeyan
`Radiolur’

All in all, 5 953 observers are following today’s elections for the
Yerevan City Council. They represent 29 local and one international
organization. The local `Choice is yours’ NGO is represented by 900
observers.

The elections are being observed by just one international organization
` the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of
Europe, represented by 15 observers. This is the case, despite the fact
that the same international organizations attach great importance to
the process of formation of the fist City Council of Yerevan.

Representatives of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities visit
different polling stations over the day, trying not to ignore any
precinct. What have the observers registered today? They usually don’t
speak on the election day, they only watch and refrain from
assessments, noting that they will present the preliminary results at a
press conference on June 1st.

Other international organizations are following the elections at
distance. For example, Director of the Europe Department of the Freedom
House Vladimir Shkolnikov declared that `the elections of May 31 are an
opportunity to regain trust and this opportunity should not be missed.’

The Millennium Challenge Corporation is also watching the elections to
see whether state of democratic governance has improved in the country
or not.

Unlike the foreign counterparts, the local observers say a little more
today. President of the `Free Society Institute’ Edgar Hakobyan has
been at the polling station #9/10 since morning. `No violations, no
emergency situations have been registered,’ he told `Radiolur.’ `The
voting is very civilized, the turnout is very high,’ Edgar Hakobyan
said.

President of he Transparency International Amalia Kostanyan gave a
quite different assessment of the voting process. She said the
observers of the organization had been working at polling station #8.
Without extra comments Amalia Kostanyan said that what was happening
there was shameful. The Transparency International is going to present
a complete report tomorrow.

One of the observers did not escape violation. The accident happened at
polling station #8/01 at the moment 100 ballots were stuffed into the
box. Violation was applied against observer of the Transparency
International Sona Ayvazyan, who tried to interfere. The organization
is preparing to present a compete report on this and other cases of
violation tomorrow.

`The Choice is yours’ NGO has also received alarms about election
frauds, but its observers preferred to refrain from providing any
information today.

As for the Armenian Helsinki Committee represented by 120 observers,
President of the organization Avetik Iskhanyan told `Radiolur:

`Our organization is carrying out an observation mission in Arabkir
community, but we are communicating with many other organizations, and
I receive alarms from many precincts. I have heard about cases of
violation in Shengavit and Davitashen communities, there has been a
scuffle in Malatsia Sebastia. As for Arabkir community, we have not
noticed serious infringements at polling stations. In one precinct we
have seen a member of the electoral commission handing two ballots to
the voter, but as a whole, the situation is still surprisingly quiet.
Let’s see what happens later.’

Observers usually start publicizing their conclusions the day following
the poll. At least one week is needed for final conclusion.