On Sunday the elections in Kentron community started in a quite tense environment. The elections proceeded in serious systematic violations.
As a result of that according to the preliminary voting results publicized by the CEC the turnout in Kentron was 31,691. 22,369 voters voted for the incumbent Republican candidate Gagik Beglaryan and 8085 voted for Ararat Zurabyan, the head of the board of the All-Armenian Movement. 1117 ballot papers were found invalid. The turnout was 31691. Zurabyan, who is a senior member of the main opposition Armenian National Congress, refused to concede defeat, rejecting the official vote results as fraudulent. His campaign claimed to have observed more than 50 instances of serious irregularities as voting drew to a close on Sunday evening. Campaign officials said on Monday that they are preparing to present evidence of the alleged fraud to prosecutors. The Congress and its top leader, former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, declared Zurabyan’s victory in the election a key objective as it tried to mount a new political offensive against Armenia’s leadership. Ter-Petrosyan personally campaigned for Zurabyan at the last opposition rally held on Friday. The Ter-Petrosyan-led opposition boycotted local elections that were also held in five other Yerevan districts on Sunday. Almost all types of violations on the election day were systematic. For example, voters were bused to polling stations and the proxies of Zurabyan were not allowed to check the IDs of voters and names in the voter lists. And those proxies, who would dare to approach and check, were called out by the police. There was wide-spread open voting in many of the precincts. The first alert call was received at 9:30 a.m. in the precinct 10/49 located in the Writer’s Union. In that precinct Zurabyan’s proxy, who was trying to prevent open voting, was asked out. Moreover, certain PEC members stated that open voting is not forbidden by the law by bringing up the fact that during the Constitutional Referendum of 2005 former president Robert Kocharyan also voted in an open manner by showing his ballot to others. In precinct 10/39 located in school after Spandaryan the PEC chair Karine Mkrtchyan (also an employee of the Kentron community council) and member of the same PEC Arevik Ghazaryan would make the voters show their ballots after marking them and telling who they voted for. At 10:45 a.m. the next incident occurred in Aygestan neighborhood, at school 20 after John Kirakosyan (previously named after Derzhinsky), where precinct 10/03 was located. Here the chair of the PEC Sergey Kostanyan demanded that the voters showed the marked ballots to him before casting them in the ballot box. He also instructed them to vote next to Beglaryan’s name. When Zurabyan’s proxy started to mediate the PEC chair called the young men gathered outside the precinct and those pushed and hit the proxy. At 10:55 a.m. open voting was organized at Tskhakhotagortsneri 1 address (former Metax block), where 10/32 polling station is located. Here too the police called the proxies of Zurabyan out because the latter were trying to prevent open voting. The incidents occurred in the polling station 10/53 were also noteworthy. As of 10:15 only 50 voters voted in the mentioned precinct but at the same hour the PEC informed the TEC that as of that hour the turnout of voters was 150. At nearly 10:30 the campaign office of Zurabyan received a phone call, according to which at school 39 (10/33 precinct near Druzhba store) the teammates of Beglaryan were transporting voters to the precinct by a Gazel minivan. The proxies of Zurabyan and council candidates were not allowed to approach the lists to check names of voters in the list. And the teammates, who transported the voters, would approach the voting screen to check whether they were voting for Beglaryan. In precinct 10/29 located in school 33 the PEC chairman Misha Santryan ordered to isolate the proxies and a group of young men didn’t allow the proxies move in the precinct. This happened after the teammates of Beglaryan transported a number of people to the precinct to vote for Beglaryan. These voters were not even residents of Kentron community. A journalist of Hayk newspaper, who was at the mentioned precinct at that time, was intimidated by a group of young men, who said, “If you want to be OK sit in your place.” At 11:25 a.m. from the precinct 10/33 of the address Tskhakhotagortsneri 1 member of the Heritage party Anahit Mesropyan, the proxy of Ararat Zurabyan was asked out. According to the information, which Zurabyan’s campaign office received, the PEC chairman opened the ballot box at 11:50 and put strange marks on ballots voted for Zurabyan ensuring that those are considered invalid. In that same precinct cases of illegal voting were registered. Some unknown young men tried to vote with someone else’s passport. The same thing happened in precinct 10/40 located at the school #42 after Shevchenko. At 11:30 Zurabyan’s campaign office received a call, according to which a citizen named Davit Ohanyan entered the precincts in 10/51 (located in Hrazdan sports theatrical complex) and 10/52 (located in #22 library of Kilika) and invited two PEC members to the police room of the precincts. After leaving the room of the policemen the PEC members took out the stacks of ballots from the safe and kept them in their pockets. At 5:30 p.m. in precinct 10/52 nearly 150 ballots marked for Beglaryan were stuffed in the ballot box. This was registered by PEC member from the Heritage party Hovsep Khurshudyan. According to the A1plus a citizen named Armen Petrosyan showed up in the precinct 10/46 located in the school of Charents. He introduced himself as Zurabyan’s proxy. When he was asked to show his badge it turned out that the badge is not given from Zurabyan’s campaign office. A similar case was registered at school after Khachik Dashtents, where precinct 10/13 and 10/14 were located. A man named Galust Aloyan introduced himself as Zurabyan’s proxy. According to the A1plus a number of voters before going to their precincts 10/47 and 10/48 located at school after Rustavelli in Kond, entered the house of Smbat. They received money from him and voted for the candidate they were bribed for. According to the A1plus these voters were escorted by Beglaryan’s proxies. One of the journalists succeeded in taking a picture of the bribe taking. By the way, in precinct 10/51 journalists were not allowed to enter at all.