Representative of the “Justice” parliamentary faction Felix Khachatryan doesn’t believe that the authorities will show political will and refrain from electoral fraud during the upcoming 2007 parliamentary elections. Khachatryan came to this conclusion after taking part in some lessons about electoral fraud conducted for members of the local electoral commissions. August 9 marked the end of the course.
According to F. Khachatryan, the authorities are using these lessons in order to create “special groups” so that they can use them come election time.
“Those groups are already turning into hostages for the authorities and they must have their chosen members for the electoral commissions just so they’ll go along with the authorities,” said Felix Khachatryan. He added that based on the voting code of Armenia, members of the local and regional electoral commissions don’t have the right to take part in the elections without taking this course. Based on one of the hundred reforms made to the voting code, it is suggested to include a maximum of 1600 voters, which means that the number of voters will increase by 50-60 at the polls alone. According to F. Khachatryan, if this proposal is approved, there will be some difficulties with finding buildings because according to the voting code, only educational, cultural and sport institutions may serve as polls.
The “Justice” faction representative also touched upon another issue: the opposition demands that the electoral commissions consist of political parties. The thing is that based on the voting code, the Cassation court is also appointed as a member of the electoral commission, while the Armenian board of judges will have that right during the 2007 elections. Despite the fact that there is still time before the elections, the board of judges has already elected members in July 2006. It turns out that one of them is David Balayan, son of judge of the Constitutional Court and Dashnak Kim Balayan and the first instance court judge.