Recently, the RA Constitutional Court made a decision declaring that the law allowing courts to be members of electoral commissions contradicts the RA Constitution. As a result of this there will be free spots in electoral commissions and the issue is expected to be discussed by political powers.
The “It’s Your Choice” NGO, which is the largest domestic electoral monitoring organization of Armenia, organized a round table in “ANI” hotel to discuss the Electoral Code and other relative issues with the participation of NA deputies, the NGO sector, political parties and representatives of Mass Media. During the discussion one of the participants, “Rule of Law” party representative Hovhannes Margaryan said that he thought it was very important to “form the electoral commissions based on the principle of equality”. The latter said that currently Armenia has six parties represented at the Armenian parliament, of which three are pro-government and the rest represent the opposition. “We can give two spots to each of those powers and thus we will have 12 places in electoral commissions. What is the problem? This method will keep the principle of equality and all decisions during the upcoming elections may be made by 2/3 proportion. This will enable us to keep the principle of equality, otherwise this principle is ignored when only three members out of the nine members are oppositional”, said H. Margaryan. Member of ULP faction Grigor Ghonjeyan said that they couldn’t say that the commissions were fully balanced, anyway they didn’t have much time to take the issue into consideration the way it should be. “We have been preparing people, we are preparing them and they are training as we speak … If we increase the proportion number, it will create many problems and we will need more resources, thus it will create political problems… In that case people may ask why we don’t provide places for the political parties that are out of the parliament, which I think is a justified argument, however, this issue is so big that I think it is not real to say that we may discuss that issue in a duly manner and achieve in such a short period”, said Mr. Ghonjeyan and suggested replacing the places of judges in electoral commissions with “the personnel of the justice branch”.
The secretary of the Armenian “Ramkavar Azatakan” Liberal party, Harutyun Arakelyan suggested giving the empty spots based on the decision of the Constitutional Court to the political parties not represented in the parliament. “For instance, it will be better to give places to the political powers that are not represented in the government and have got more than 5% of votes, they can make a coalition and be included in electoral commissions”, he said. Mr. Arakelyan said that the political powers that are not represented in the parliament and could not go beyond the 5% limit all together collected over 24% votes during the previous elections, however, those votes were “given as a present” to the political powers that managed to enter the parliament. The latter says they are afraid that after amending the EO the 5% limit may be increased up to 7-10%, thus the other powers will be given more votes than before.
Representative of “Justice” alliance in the Central Electoral commission, Felix Khachatryan said that he couldn’t understand why the electoral commissions should be balanced between the oppositional and pro-government parties. First of all he suggested clarifying how it is determined which of the current parties are oppositional or pro-government. “What if 5-6 pro-government parties manage to enter the parliament? Won’t they form electoral commissions any more?” asked Felix Khachatryan and added, “For that purpose I think there is a very simple mechanism: we can first of all fix the number of places in electoral commissions and then distribute those places. For instance, each of the first six powers may be given by two places regardless of whether they have entered the parliament or not”. He stated that during the previous elections “Justice” was second after the Republican party with its number of votes, however, it wasn’t represented in the triple members’ group of electoral commissions anywhere. “Don’t you think there are risks and mechanisms for electoral violations?” asked Felix Khachatryan and suggested forming the electoral commissions by drawing lots.
The participants also discussed issues concerning recording electoral processes and taking fingerprints. For instance, H. Margaryan said that in Kyrgyzstan he had seen how the proxies, observers and electoral commissions were discussing whether that liquid existed or not. “I saw how they gave their fingerprints, they washed the ink with acetone”, said the RL member. To this Felix Khachatryan remarked that he had heard that ink could be washed with “Armenicum”. “They saw that they couldn’t use that medicine anywhere else, they were able to use it to clean ink”, said Felix Khachatryan and suggested putting stamps in passports after people have voted.
Member of “Republic” party Artak Zeinalyan said that the Electoral Code in Armenia had always had all the necessary provisions to organize free, fair and democratic elections. Zeinalyan said that when discussing the EO, the NA did not refer to the judicial application practices of the law. “They don’t discuss the judicial acts and decisions; they can describe the law best. They haven’t even discussed the court decisions during the parliamentary and presidential elections of 2003”, said A. Zeilanyan. As for Felix Khachatryan, he insisted that parties be given the right to call their representatives in electoral commissions back.