“There won’t be any long-term observation of February 19 presidential elections,” Abram Bakhchagulyan, CEC secretary, told during a news conference. OSCE observers will arrive in Armenia on a short-term election mission. “CEC invites all international organizations and the ambassadors of the countries with which we cooperate,” Bakhchagulyan said. He also said the list of organizations that will be invited to observe the elections will be announced soon by CEC. This means as in past international observers will be deployed only on the election day. However, as it’s known electoral violations (unequal campaign opportunities, use of administrative resources, voter list falsification, voter intimidation, etc) take place months prior to elections and only long-term observers can register those. And the fact that long-term observers won’t be invited comes to prove that the government is going to apply the previously applied violations (perhaps slightly tuned up). And those violations will provide “free and fair elections” for them.
