The state resource is being used in such an evident way, which would definitely been considered an illegality in some other legal country. This opinion was expressed by the head of Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s campaign office Alexander Arzumanyan.
In his words the whole state apparatus, police, all the law-enforcers, the State Tax and Customs Services are busy with reproducing the incumbent government. He believes that there are dozens of thousands examples of his statement. However yesterday he spoke about the most outstanding violations and brought up facts. “As you know November 21 to December 6 was the set period for the candidates’ nomination. While all the other candidates were busy with presenting their documents to the CEC for nomination one of the candidates, the current Prime Minster makes a decision on establishing a committee,” informed Arzumanyan and showed to the present guests the copy of the decision. Thus, according to the # 855 decision dated December 4 a working group has been created to provide complete analytic information about the pre-election proceedings to the Prime Minister, such as complaint letters, questions risen, etc. The working group includes 13 people, all of them statesmen. The head of the group is A. Badalyan, chief of staff of RA Government and a deputy-minister. The address of the working group is on Khorenatsi 7 St. It has a hotline number and two landlines, computers, which are connected to the government network. The working group operates under the control of three video cameras the whole day. Formally the group is headed by member of the RA Civil Service Board Margarita Azaryan. The activity of the working group is coordinated by the Prime Minister’s referent Armen Abelyan’s council. So what does this group do? As you know the MIAK party has been doing a door-to-door canvassing even before the official campaign was launched. The members of that party are persuading the voters to vote for Sargsyan and they hand in a blank, where they can ask their questions to the Prime Minister, which reads, “A form to ask questions to the Prime Minister, presidential candidate Serzh Sargsyan.” And so the main function of the working group, as Arzumanyan says, is the coordination of the accepted forms provided by the MIAK party. As of January 29 the MIAK has passed to the working group 10 thousand forms in total. Most of the forms highlight such issues as unemployment, financial assistance, reimbursement of education tuition, repair of elevators and roofs, gasification, heating system operation and many other issues. There were even requests where people asked Serzh Sargsyan to withdraw his candidacy for Ter-Petrosyan. After coordinating and grouping of the forms the working group sends those to the council, which decides, who is going to be in charge of making necessary expenses for the pile of similar requests. The working group members have an impression that the MIAK members have a certain “plan” to provide X number of forms. An essential number of forms are filled out with a similar handwriting and signatures. The requests connected with gasification will be responded by the ArmRusGazArd, issues connected with surgery will be solved by the RA Ministry of Healthcare, the handicapped people will be provided by crutches and wheelchairs by the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Security. It is strictly ordered not to give any negative response to any request. Arzumanyan had numerous forms with him, which were filled in. He said that before the press conference he had called the mentioned working group (500313, 500314 phone numbers). After ensuring that Arzumanyan was calling from the RPA campaign office they offered him to fill in a form. But this is not it yet. The head of Ter-Petrosyan’s campaign office showed a form which he believes was prepared in the campaign office of Serzh Sargsyan. He also showed a few filled out forms. They are numbered, have the first and last names of the citizen, date of birth, passport number, address, number of the polling station, home and mobile phone numbers. Each slip of paper has the name of the person, who should be in charge. Ter-Petrosyan is planning to present all these facts of violation to the OSCE ODIHR. “Gangster-state is the soft name of the current regime,” he said. After all there can be no word about free and fair elections. However he ensured that they won’t let violations take place and that they will not let anyone steal their votes and will have victory in the first round.