The Armenian parliamentary elections to be held on May 12 of this year will be a very important indicator for democratic progress in Armenia. This is what is stated in the OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) report. According to OSCE/ODIHR, although the reformed Electoral Code of Armenia serves as an “estimable and thorough” basis for the conducting of democratic elections, however “the upcoming elections will, first of all, demand the enforcement of political will and legislation in order to conduct them based on the requirements set by the OSCE”.
The organization underlined that the authors of the violations during the 2003 parliamentary and presidential elections still haven’t been brought to justice and this has created an environment of tolerance.
“Although the reformed code provides the opportunity of a more balanced structure for the electoral commissions, however there are still worries, especially from the opposition regarding the subjectivity of the electoral commission administrators,” stated in the report. “Elimination of the quorum on the part of the electoral commissions during decision approval helps ease the worries. However, others say that the elimination of the quorum is a necessary anti-boycott step”, underlined in the report. According to the organization, “the newly founded pro-government “Prosperous Armenia” political party, which has been around since March 2006, has established a broad party network in all regions of Armenia” and has been involved in benevolent activity, “which is criticized as early campaign and electoral bribe”.
As for the accessibility of presses, the organization underlines that although the accessibility of public and private mass media during the official campaign is guaranteed by law, however the opposition claims that the accessibility of presses is very limited even before the official launch of the campaign. “Two independent television networks-“A1+” and “Noyan Tapan that have both lost their licenses respectively-broadcast their programs without frequency in 2001 and 2002 despite their participation in many contests,” as stated in the report. The people we talked to and mass media experts consider the licensing rejection as a message to other presses that fear losing their licenses and work on self-censuring”. The needs-evaluation mission has suggested founding an election observation mission, sending 24 long-term observers in the middle of March and 300 short-term observers during the days of the election.