CIVIL SOCIETY VOICES CONCERN
KarabakhOpen
28-02-2008 19:39:09
We, the undersigned civil society organizations, express our deep
concern with the presidential elections on February 19, 2008, the
pre-election period, the election campaign and the post-election
processes in the country. The assessment of international observers,
even though portrayed in a positive light by the government and the
government controlled media, was critical. However, the apparent
discrepancy between the actual findings of the assessment with
the formative first two sentences of the report resulted in the
government only referring to this paragraph in the international
observers’ assessment in order to legitimize the results of the
election. Meanwhile, in the report, international observers pointed
out to media censorship, intimidation of voters, vote buying, etc. and
called vote count ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ in 16 percent of polling stations
visited. Qualifying such practices as a "step forward" and in line with
the commitments to hold free and fair elections discredits the notion
of democracy and further lowers the standards of democratic reforms.
A number of undersigned organizations observed the elections during
the voting day as well as the process prior and post February 19. The
instances of violations are numerous and are documented in our reports.
We are particularly concerned with the Freedom of Media/Access to
Media, Violence, Corruption and Use of Administrative Resources,
Arrests of Public Figures.
One of the main points that the OSCE/ODHIR observation mission made
in its interim report concerned the need to establish public trust
in the electoral process. Deep rooted mistrust and often-referred-to
public apathy is nothing else but self-preservation reaction of
the Armenian people vs. the atmosphere of impunity for those who
perpetrated electoral fraud in all past elections. The processes
taking place after the elections are alarming and will definitely
deepen the public distrust.
We believe that as long as electoral fraud goes uninvestigated and
unpunished, there will be no trust in the process and in the legal
and judicial system.
We believe that only through open and widely inclusive public
discussion over the above stated problems and violations it is possible
to foster the atmosphere of trust and public confidence.
In view of the above, we state that this election was not held
in correspondence with our understanding of democratic values and
practices.
We believe that the way the authorities handle the fraud will be
indicative of the honest determination to abide by the rules of
democratic free and fair elections.
We call upon the Armenian government to stop politically motivated
detentions. These are not calls for impunity, but a call for the
government to set the example for the Armenian people and to act
within the law.
We call upon the international community to see through the commitment
of the Armenian government to comply with the procedure and to require
documentation of proper investigation and due punishment of those
who violated the law.
We call upon the international community to make objective conclusions
based on their own findings and not to discredit the notion of
democracy, democratic standards and principles, as well as the
international organizations carrying out an observation mission.
Signatories
"Asparez" Journalists’ Club
Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression
Helsinki Committee of Armenia
Helsinki Citizens Assembly Vanadzor Branch
"Internews-Armenia" Media Support NGO
Media Diversity Institute
Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation-Armenia
Transparency International Anti-corruption Center
Yerevan Press Club
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
