This is how NA independent deputy Viktor Dallakyan expressed his surprise concerning several provisions in the bill on “Amendments and supplements to the Electoral code”.
This bill has been proposed by the MPs of ARP and PA factions. ARF, which is their coalition partner, doesn’t support this bill. The head of the NA faction of the ARF, Hrayr Karapetyan says that they will sign under that bill only in case if the ARP and PA include their recommendations in the bill. Since the ARF is trying to convince its counterparts to include their recommendations in the bill, the opposition factions threat that they will make so much noise during the discussions on Monday, which will be a unique case in the history of the parliament. In a word, the opposition does not want to lose this opportunity provided by the authorities to develop its PR. “We will make the issue like the Armenian issue, you will see that,” said a deputy representing the opposition and asked not to discover his name yet until he informs the head of their faction about it. Independent MP Viktor Dallakyan thinks that the authorities want to solve several problems through such changes, one of which is the legalization of the monthly bribe given to the deputy head of the RA Central Electoral Commission and commission secretary. “The 33rd provision of Article 12 contains a supplement that they will receive additional payment per month equal to 20% of the commission member remuneration. As for the existing law, it defines a fixed amount to be paid,” says Viktor Dallakyan. Electoral commission heads are going to receive such “encouraging” additional payments too. “It means that they are dispersing money,” concludes the deputy. There is another recommendation, which provides that during election periods “an encouraging fund” should be founded for CEC members. “O mum! What about teachers? For example why don’t they found such funds for teachers too? Are they receiving money and are they encouraged for violating against the state payment? It is an uncontrollable fund,” Dallakyan said and added that it was done “just to make money”.
There is an interesting recommendation too, which is that the persons wishing to run for president can be nominated only by self-nomination and nomination by parties. In fact, this law excludes the possibility of nomination through civic initiative. Dallakyan says that the danger is the fact that voters will not see any information on their ballots concerning the parties and political forces backing separate candidates.
Head of “Heritage” faction Stepan Safaryan says that this amendment seems positive at first glance since it excludes the possibility of signature collecting by the initiators’ group, which becomes a trouble for candidates later, however in the reality it is not so. “If it becomes a trouble for candidates, they can just find someone who rejects the signature, thus the registration of that person becomes a problem, but now they are putting frames the right and opportunities of people for participation through increasing the capacities of pledge. As for the state, which should create conditions for the application of those rights, it is doing the vice versa,” Stepan Safaryan said. Concerning excluding the provision about nomination by initiators’ group the head of “Heritage” faction said that generally they supported the provision that a candidate should express will to be nominated himself. “On the other hand, we are not giving an opportunity to those citizens to say that they want to support him to be nominated too. The problem consists in the format of the problem, which is missing, and they are thinking of limiting the opportunities more,” Safaryan said. Answering to a question whether it was not directed against a person (i.e. Levon Ter-Petrosyan), Mr. Safaryan said, “I think that there is such context since Levon Ter-Petrosyan has said that he would return if the nation asked him. Of course, that announcement was a half-joke, but it brought to certain conclusions notwithstanding anything. I think that those who proposed this provision just want to show that there is no public demand to nominate him, but it is just self-nomination. I think that the main point is what I said since in case of running the society will learn about the powers backing him. It is not a secret they can hide from the society. It just helps to legally exclude the bases of “asking” Ter-Petrosyan on the part of the entire nation”.
In addition, the coalition powers have proposed an amendment, according to which the candidate for presidency has to pay a pledge not equal to 5 million, but 10 million dram. (candidates for NA elections have to pay 1 million dram instead of 100.000).
We asked the ARF faction head Hrayr Karapetyan whether they are not concerned about the mentioned amendment, after adopting which anyone who has money may take part in elections notwithstanding that those who really deserve participation may be excluded due to not having money. According to H. Karapetyan, those actions are targeted at increasing the quality level of candidates for presidency. “I don’t think that this change may affect the nomination for president. I think that the pledge for a candidate for presidency should differ. Any Armenian citizen, including the rich people can run. I think that only having money is not sufficient for nomination for presidency,” H. Karapetyan said. According to him, the ARF is more concerned about the exclusion of double voting and for that purpose they have made a recommendation to put a stamp in voters’ passports upon voting. If the NA majority adopts this and other “principal” recommendations of ARF, we will sign under that bill too, since most of the recommendations developed by ARP and PA are acceptable for them despite the fact that there are people who say “o mum!” when reading them.