Prosperous Armenia, Dashnaktsutyun parties and the ANC have decided to apply to the Constitutional Court asking to rule unconstitutional the provision in the Electoral Code, according to which does not allow publishing the lists of participants following elections.
These political powers participating in the united headquarter to control the process of elections allege that there are over 500,000 names in voter lists, which are temporarily or permanently missing from Armenia. They believe that the authorities, especially the RPA, are going to use these names to provide extra votes for their party. Even there are experts’ opinions that the RPA will be able to have victory due to the votes of the people missing from Armenia only. Rumors say that people from different regions have been taken and registered in other regions, especially in larger cities. It is worth mentioning that compared to the presidential election 2008, this year the number of voters in voter lists is more by 170,000 names. Many experts believe that due to these names and double voting mechanisms it will be possible to gain a half million more votes. Certainly those people will be paid for such service. Generally, during the past years there have been announcements during local government and national elections that there were names of dead people in the lists and many votes were provided due to those non-existing names. During these elections the situation is unprecedented because several powers joining together to fight against this violence, and even one of those powers is a member of the ruling coalition. These three powers of the joint headquarter have decided to bring a case against the above mentioned provision of the electoral law. By the way, since its foundation three weeks ago this is the first specific and targeted decision, notwithstanding what the results may be.
It is not the first time that the provision banning publishing voter lists is discussed and is a topic of political discussions. During the development and discussion of the new electoral law this provision has been numerously criticized by the ARF and Heritage parties. Before the adoption of the electoral law, these parties submitted a lot of recommendations to the law, including the one allowing publishing voter lists following elections. However, he ruling coalition failed to adopt that recommendation reasoning that the Venice commission was against it. Before the adoption of the new Electoral Code the Heritage party developed a recommendation to make amendment to the previous code to include this changed provision. However, the coalition powers, including the PA, refused that recommendation. Now, the situation is very extraordinary because the PA, being a part of the coalition, has joined two opposition parties in an initiative and is applying to the Constitutional Court to amend a law, which was not adopted also party due to the same power as it has voted against it. Now the PA is going to fight against a code, for which they have voted together with the other powers of the ruling coalition. The PA leadership, including Vartan Oskanyan have announced that they will sign under such initiative. It is worth reminding again that these are the MPs and political power, which has voted against the same bill in the past. Anyway it is good that the PA has eventually understood that the opportunity of publishing voter lists gives a great chance for fighting against electoral violations. However, there is the other side of the coin as well. Does it really make sense to file a case to the Constitutional Court ten days before the election day? Even if the Constitutional Court approves this compliant and rules a verdict that the mentioned provision is unconstitutional, which is not so much possible, this law and the court’s verdict will be late as the elections will have passed already.
In order to apply to the Constitutional Court there must be signatures of 27 MPs. The PA has announced that their 20 MPs would sign under that initiative. Seven signatures are missing, and the ARF in fact can provide even more signatures. As for the Heritage, this party may not provide signatures of MPs due to the same reasons for which they signed under the joint statement but failed to support the initiative as they did not participate in the works of that group. Te Heritage was claiming that the initiative had to b signed by the top leaders of those parties and the PA had to gout of the coalition and stop distributing bribes under the cover of philanthropy. The other parties were criticizing the Heritage in cooperating with the RPA and claimed that the RPA did not allow them to support their joint initiative. Recently the coordinator of that joint headquarter Hmayak Hovhannisyan handed a letter to the Heritage party, in which they confirmed their decision to join the case submitted to the Constitutional Court. We talked to the deputy chairman of Heritage party Ruben Hakobyan, who told us that nobody had sent official letter to their central headquarter. R. Hakobyan said that H. Hovhannisyan has left some letter when passing near their office and also reminded about the fact that the PA, together with the other coalition parties, had voted against their bill for the same purpose. “Now, when they have changed their mind 8-10 days before the election day, and there must be 27 signatures in order to be able to apply to the Constitutional Court, I think they can apply as those two political powers. Simply they can do it so that we understand that they are honest and it is not a PR action. They can do it, and if they are decisive and really want it, they should do it. I will appreciate the fact that they have changed their mind,” said R.Hakobyan.
The lawyer of the united headquarter Vahe Grigoryan, who is in charge of the case to be submitted to the CC, assures that there are legal justifications to support the case as by keeping voter lists in secret, a number of provisions of the Constitution are violated. “From the prospective of international law there is no principle of secrecy concerning different issues, however, the voter lists in Armenia are kept in secret in case when its publication has no harm to national security. The lists are available only to the CEC and precinct commissions, and they do not have a right to publish the lists as they are state institutions. If the Constitutional Court does not have a political will and does not make an adequate resolution, during future disputes this institution will not be able to publish lists,” said V.Grigoryan.
This united headquarter is planning to submit the application urging to change the provision prohibiting from publish the lists today.