International observers keep silent, local once give controversial
assessments
31.05.2009 18:02
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 ele ctions
to see whether the state of democratic governance has improved in the
country.
Unlike the foreign colleagues, the local observers say a little more
today. President of the `Free Society Institute’ Edgar Hakobyan has
been at 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 the 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.
Observers usually start publicizing their conclusions the day
following the poll. At least one week is needed for final conclusion.