Official results of voting must accurately express voters’ will, Pashinyan says during visit to Aragatsotn province
12:58,
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 21, ARMENPRESS. The government of Armenia has put a task that the December 9 early parliamentary elections must be the best in the country’s history, acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during the meeting with the community leaders of Aragatsotn province, reports Armenpress.
“What do we mean by saying the best elections? We mean that the official results of the voting should accurately express the will of the voters. So what we need to do for this purpose? Firstly, we must rule out any illegal influence on the voters’ will. You know that the distribution of bribes during elections is the most widespread method of the past years, but now the Police and the law enforcement system in general have a concrete task to strictly react to any attempt of electoral bribe distribution. God forbid, if such an attempt is made somewhere, and I receive that information not from the law enforcement agencies, but from the media, because I think that the Police should have an operative information about any such attempt, and this issue must be definitely solved at the prevention level”, he said.
The acting PM added that there is a practice in Armenia when the company owners, community leaders invite villagers and try to guide them to a concrete voting with certain deals. Pashinyan said this phenomenon as well must be eradicated in Armenia. “Our task is to clearly record that each citizen of Armenia can make his/her choice without the help of another. Let me bring my example. For many years I have managed the biggest newspaper in Armenia, have been editor-in-chief, but no such case happened that I tell any staff member to vote for this person. The essence of the political process is the following: politics is public, people see who are the candidates, listen to them, read their pre-election programs, listen to comments, and they can make a decision. Our task is for the election campaign to be held in the conditions of absolute equality during these elections. In other words, no obstacle to the activity of any political force, the election campaign must take place in any corner of the Republic. If any hall is available for any political force, it must also be available for the others. Of course, we hope that the weather will be as it is now so that there will be no need for halls. I think the freedom of broadcasting is a known fact, therefore the television broadcasting should be equally available to all, let me not talk about the internet because the international organizations have ranked Armenia among the countries with free internet, and we are in the list of the world’s leading countries with this indicator”, Pashinyan said.
Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
