During the winter session of the European Council, which launched in Strasburg yesterday, Thomas Yirsa’s speech about Armenia’s constitutional amendments referendum, which took place on November 27, 2005, was one of the speeches among many others.
However, the council had not included this issue in the agenda, so the newly appointed member of the Armenian delegation Stepan Demirchyan could not make a speech about the referendum.
On October 7 of last year, the European Council Bureau had decided to form a temporary council in order to observe the constitutional amendments referendum in Armenia and Thomas Yirsa was appointed as the temporary speaker for the council. A 14 member delegation of observers was sent to Armenia. Before the referendum, many were spreading rumors that since the European organizations were not hiding the fact that they were in favor of the proposed constitutional amendments, then it was possible that they wouldn’t pay much attention to the fraud. Armenian authorities also shared this opinion as they announced that there were more than 1.5 million voters and talked a little about a small amount of “yes” votes. Perhaps our authorities did not go along with the harsh tone of Thomas Yirsa as he started to read his speech. It turns out that a week before the session, the leader of our Armenian delegation Tigran Torosyan had presented 16 written proposals to the author in order to “make some corrections” regarding the constitutional amendments. However, none of those proposals were read. The abovementioned speech underlines that the European council observers’ team was the only international observer for the referendum since the authorities did not send out any invitations to the rest of the international organizations this year.
“The delegation was of the impression that informing the public about the referendum was more like a parliamentary “yes” propaganda, rather than a democratic debate for voting yes or no to the proposed amendments,” as stated in the speech.
At the end of the speech, it states that media on the Internet is still followed up on by the state and the arguments going against the amendments still haven’t been shown on television. Although propaganda for the referendum was well organized in the media with different point of views, however, this was not widespread. The speech emphasizes how Robert Kocharyan voted.
“Just a couple of days before the referendum, the president announced on television that he was going to vote openly and that is exactly what he did. This was highly criticized due to the fact that this went against the secret voting law stated in the Constitution.”
In regard to the strategies of the opposition before and after the referendum, Thomas Yirsa states that the opposition is doing what its doing because it is criticizing some aspects of the Constitution, however, it mainly has to do with the fact that they are still discussing the results of the 2003 presidential and parliamentary elections “which have been criticized by the European Council and other international observers.”
In the speech, Th. Yirsa recalls the event that happened on November 24, when an oppositionist from the “Republic” political party crossed a red light on the street and was beaten by police officers shortly after and transferred to a hospital.
“The opposition’s meetings were peaceful, everything was in control and were held according to the laws,” as stated in the speech.
Mr. Yirsa also commented on how the current law on secret voting is not really valid because voters must stamp the ballot after voting. Also, he talked about open voting and many cases of fraud which the observers have witnessed.
“The soldiers were a different story. They were brought to the poll and taken back by the commander. Although the commanders didn’t know that the soldiers had the right to stay neutral and not vote, it seemed as though they couldn’t take advantage of that right,” states Th. Yirsa in his speech and adds that the observers stationed at the polls where there were soldiers voting affirmed that there was 100% percent of soldiers registered to vote. The European Council do not accept that there was a high number of voters.
“Some polls in the Marzes and almost all the polls in Yerevan were empty despite the time that there were voters. The only exception was the soldier’s votes.”
The speech adds a little irony by saying that all the presidents of the electoral commissions were announcing high numbers of participants. They claim that there had been many voters at the time when there were no observers at the polls. In the speech, much is talked about the No. 06/01 poll where observers had the chance to see just how fraud is carried out during elections. Th. Yirsa is certain that the majority of people that went to vote at the polls were people that were for the constitutional amendments and expressed their opinions through their votes.
“Question: How many people and did they actually keep the quorum? The passing of the New Constitution will always be full of doubts. No reform is fully democratic if it is not made democratically.” This is how the speech is concluded and Th. Yirsa emphasizes the fact that we Armenians don’t seem to have respect towards the values of the European Council. The delegation also doesn’t approve of the opposition, which “created obstacles for the transparency of the referendum by being committee members and boycotting.”
The European Council also doesn’t like the fact that there was no protest made to the Central Electoral Commission and to the corresponding courts.
“You can’t solve disagreements by “intolerance” and refusal when it comes to democracy, even if the democratic system is imperfect or has many errors; all laws must be applied,” says Th. Yirsa as he gives advice to the opposition for the future. Yirsa believes that it is important to emphasize that “besides the fact that each person has to be responsible”, in general, Armenia faces a lack of responsibility in the political field.
“The constitutional amendments are as important to Armenia for fulfilling its requirements and completing its assignments in front of the European Council, as free and fair elections are for Armenia. Until now, starting from the time since Armenia joined the European Union, there has been no fair and free elections. The authorities still have to prove that they feel a sense of responsibility to prove that the country is democratic and they have to show that through their actions,” said Th. Yirsa as he concluded his speech.