The Central Electoral Commission publicized the final results of the February 19 presidential elections on Sunday, February 24 despite the fact that the deadline of the publication was February 26.
So why did the CEC show such a rush if it had two more days left? This question is being asked quite often these days. Moreover, this session of the CEC on February 24 was conducted in the absence of the representatives of the Heritage and Legal State parties. They were informed about the session only half an hour ago. It turns out that the CEC concluded the results in order to make the process of the results “digestion” on part of the society more objective. “According to the Electoral Code the CEC has the right to publicize the final results of elections within 7 days after voting, however the results of the voting arrived by 4 p.m. The Commission input these results in the automatic system and all we had to do press on the appropriate button and receive all the necessary information about the election outcome,” said the Secretary of the CEC Abraham Bakhchagulyan. Besides that according to Bakhchagulyan there is an approach in the European Convention, which states that the sooner the election results are publicized the more persuasive those will be for the society. And now this time the CEC decided to follow the provisions of the European Convention and make the persuasive step. The society, however, is not sure whether the CEC has done the calculation right. The evidence of that is the request of the candidates’ proxies to do a re-counting of ballots. Besides that, the ballot counting on part of the CEC also concerned the international monitors. Bakhchagulyan yesterday spoke about the written complaints as well. Two days ago Arman Musinyan, the spokesperson of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, stated that they have had 300 requests of a recount, out of which only 2-3 polling stations’ ballots were recounted. As a response to Musinyan’s statement Bakhchagulyan said that only 19 out of all the appeals of Ter-Petrosyan were not discussed and instead the recount was conducted in 62 polling stations. 4 of Baghdasaryan’s appeal letters was denied and the recount was conducted in 24 polling stations. The recount for presidential candidate Arman Melikyan was conducted based on his two appeal letters. The appeal letters of Vahan Hovhannisyan and Serzh Sargsyan (three from each) were also responded to. 24 out of the 27 complaint letters of Aram Harutyunyan, Artashes Geghamyan’s 6 complaint letters and 11 complaint letters of Tigran Karapetyan were satisfied. The CEC Secretary also informed that the complaint letters were passed by those proxies, who haven’t been observing on the election day. That is the reason why such complaint letters were not taken into account. “There were approximately 170 such letters in the CEC. 24 out of those were discussed because of lack of time,” said Bakhchagulyan. On Tuesday during Ter-Petrosyan’s rally it was announced that they had applied to the CEC to invalidate the results of elections. Bakhchagulyan said that the Commission had received such a letter without a signature, which claimed to cancel the voting results. The letter hasn’t discussed yet. However as required by the Electoral Code each letter should be discussed by the CEC within 5 days. Despite the fact that there had been certain violations in certain polling stations Bakhchagulyan is sure that those didn’t affect the results and legitimacy of the voting. As of the post-electoral developments and complaints he thinks that there cannot be unanimous opinions about a process, which involves over 1 million 600 thousand people. Days ago member of the Heritage Party, CEC member Zoya Tadevosyan showed a ballot during the rally, which as she said she had found from the garbage can of the CEC. According to her there were many other such ballots in the garbage can. Why did this ballot appear in the can? Bakhchagulyan thinks that they took those from the polling stations. “Every careless voter can bring out ballots from the polling stations as the commission member, who stamps envelopes, doesn’t have the right to check what’s inside the envelope,” said the CEC Secretary. Thus, the opposition representatives in the PECs were able to steal ballots and the government members or the PEC chairpersons didn’t notice it. If someone has ever been present at the ballot counting process he/she knows that it’s impossible to steal any ballots especially if the ballot goes on behalf of the government candidate. Bakhchagulyan also informed that the CEC hasn’t yet received a claim from the candidates, who had overcome the 5% threshold to have their 8 million deposit back. The 4 candidates Aram Harutyunyan, Arman Melikyan, Artashes Geghamyan, Tigran Karapetyan, who haven’t been able to overcome the 5% threshold, will not be able to have their deposits back.