ACCORDING TO COUNCIL OF EUROPE MONITORING MISSION, YEREVAN COUNCIL OF ELDERS ELECTIONS WERE HELD AT SATISFACTORY LEVEL, BUT WITH SOME SHORTCOMINGS

Noyan Tapan
June 1, 2009

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The monitoring mission of Council of
Europe Congress of Local and Territorial Authorities states that the
general organization level of Yerevan Council of Elders elections
corresponded to European standards. As monitoring group head Nigel
Mermagen stated at the June 1 press conference, their mission welcomes
the Yerevan Council of Elders first elections that were held at a
satisfactory level, but with some shortcomings. N. Mermagen added
that a progress was recorded in the May 31 elections as compared with
the 2008 presidential elections. "However, democracy is not only
limited to elections: there should be an electoral culture in the
country. Elections should be simple and pure outside polling stations,
as well," he said.

Though journalists asked for several times concretely what shortcomings
and omissions the European observers had recorded, N. Mermagen did not
mention them. According to him, those shortcomings will be presented
in their final report to be published in October.

In response to the questions of why observers disregard the fact of
beating many journalists on the day of elections and why when visiting
polling stations observers only spoke with power representatives
N. Mermagen said that he was sorry that journalists formed such
an impression.