The OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) was opened in Yerevan on March 19 and it launched the long-term observatory mission for the Armenian parliamentary elections to be held on May 12.
The election observers are in Armenia with the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia. Thirteen observers will be in Yerevan, while 29 long-term observers will be stationed at different sites of Armenia. Head of the OSCE long-term observatory mission from Slovenia Boris Frlets noted during the press conference held on Wednesday that these elections are “important” for Armenia. He also emphasized that unfortunately, to this day, elections in Armenia have not corresponded to European norms and that the 2007 elections is a chance to change that tendency. The ODIHR will appeal to OSCE member states to send another 300 short-term observers in order to open and close the precincts, as well as observe the counting of votes and summing up of the results. The observers are going to rate the elections’ correspondence to democratic election principles. They are going to follow-up on the campaign process, the election conferences and the work of the corresponding bodies, electoral law enforcement, the presses and the solution to election disputes.
“The Electoral Code of Armenia which was recently reformed secures legal grounds for conducting democratic elections, but the government faces the challenge of showing good will in law enforcement so that the conduct of this and future elections fulfill the OSCE requirements,” noted Boris Frlets. His headed observatory mission plans to join the short-term OSCE Parliamentary Assembly observers and this group of observers will be led by vice-chairman of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Tone Tingsgaard. Frlets also announced during the press conference that they are not going to follow-up on the elections in their entirety, after which they will give their rating because, as he stated, “it is very important to rate the elections as a whole”. The observers exclude any pressure and say that they will resist those pressures and will do everything possible to be independent and unbiased. The observers are getting ready to meet with the Armenian opposition too. According to Frlets, they will stay in Armenia for a while after the elections as well in order to see and evaluate the post-electoral processes in the country. Frlets also stressed that the OSCE/ODIHR observatory mission and the OSCE Yerevan office are working independently based on different mandates. Let us recall that head of the OSCE Yerevan office is Vladimir Pryakhin from Russia.