NO NEW VIOLATIONS

A1+
01:36 am | June 01, 2009

Politics

The violations registered at the polling stations until now are
classic violations. There were rumors that there would be new
violations during these elections, yet we haven’t seen such yet,"
"Civil Society Institute" representative, "hotline" coordinator Artak
Kirakosyan told "A1+".

As of 2 p.m., the "Hotline" had already received nearly 40 alarms
from observers, proxies and voters. In addition, 20 rapid reaction
automobiles were touring the polling stations without waiting for a
specific alarm.

Touring the polling stations of the Avan district, we found out that
the main electoral violations were connected with placement of voting
booths. For instance, the voting booths at the 1/1 polling station of
the district were clung to the wall and were facing the commission,
making the voter look towards the commission.

President of the polling station commission Vardan Muradyan assured
us that voters had a hard time moving around at the station due to
the small size of the station. That is why they had fixed a chain at
a 1.5-2 meter distance.

This is not a violation of the law. All commission members gave their
consent and it was the report was drawn up," assured the commission
president referring to the RA "Electoral Code".

It seemed that the area at the 1/2 polling station was rather large,
but the voting booths were installed in the opposite direction
again. President of this staton’s commission Hranush Khachatryan
assured us that they installed the booths like that because the tables
had to be at a distance of 1 meter.

We were caught by surprise at the 1/19 polling station. True, the
voting booths were installed by law, but they were near the door and
in front of the windows. President of the commission Tamara Vahanyan
assured us that it has been like that during all elections and there
have never been any problems. According to him, they hadn’t received
any warnings from the Central Electoral Commission. We talked about
ANC proxy Andranik Petrosyan, but he also didn’t see any violation
of the law.

The situation was more ridiculous at the 1/3 polling station. A young
man came out of the "Z" taxi with a list in his hand and tried to enter
the polling station. We asked him what the lists were and he said
that they were the lists of residents living on the 4th cul-de-sac
in Avan district, so that "the people at the polling station could
participate in the vote."

"We haven’t brought the list to the polling station. We are simply
checking to see that everybody comes to vote," said the young man.

Let us mention that as of 4 p.m, nearly 900 people had cast their
votes at this polling station and at 1 p.m., Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan came to the 10/21 polling station at the Levon Shant school
to cast his vote.

Journalist for "168 Hours" Armine Avetyan and "Transparency
International" representative Sona Ayvazyan were beaten up.