On Monday, almost the entire staff of the Central Electoral Commission, including deputy chief of police of Armenia Hovhannes Varyan and Deputy Prosecutor General of Armenia Gevorg Danielyan, met with heads of the precinct electoral commissions (PEC) to explain to the latter about their rights and responsibilities before, on, and after Election Day.
Danielyan announced on Monday that to this day the prosecutor’s office has not received any calls from the electoral commissions when there really are evident legal violations.
“This is not a correct approach,” said Danielyan.
According to Danielyan, one of the biggest violations is the presence of campaign posters on the walls of state institution buildings. The deputy prosecutor general has also announced that the prosecutor’s office is informed of those violations through mass media and makes the call to the local prosecutor’s office branch.
“Now, I ask you, and I insist, that you report the violations,” announced Danielyan.
Let us inform that the following is stated in the 1st subtext of the 4th point of the 18th article of the Electoral Code of Armenia:
“It is prohibited to run a pre-election campaign and disperse any campaign material on any topic to state and local autonomous bodies, as well as their workers, while they are completing their work duties.”
So, Mr. Danielyan is right when he announces that the presence of campaign posters on the buildings of state institutions is a major violation of the law. But the problem is that president of the so-called Central Electoral Commission, Garegin Azaryan, doesn’t know about this. So, either the head of the body organizing the elections doesn’t know anything about the corresponding legislation or knows it, but is trying to “trick” the others in a way characteristic of the current authorities, because that’s how he wants it. The thing is that recently, in response to the publications in the presses in which a call is made that the campaign posters of the governmental parties are also posted on the buildings of the municipality, the village districts and/or other state institutions, Azaryan said:
“I am obligated to explain that bodies are not in the form or shape of buildings, but are separate entities. I think that you agree with me when I say that if there is a poster posted on the façade of a building, then that doesn’t mean that the body located in that building is implementing a campaign.”
So, either Mr. Azaryan has to explain his practical joke to G. Danielyan, or announce that there was some kind of “wrong translation” and they have not understood him well (as is accepted to say in the past couple of years).
On Monday, Azaryan explained to the heads of the precinct electoral commissions along with the other members of the CEC that it is not permitted to insert the stamp of the commission in the folder for registration booklets and other documents. The stamps must be turned in to the “ArmIncasation” on May 13 at 9:00 a.m., and the latter must bring it to the Central Electoral Commission. According to Azaryan, if the stamp is found in the bag, then it has been done on purpose, or some people just don’t know what they are responsible for doing. After all, the Central Electoral Commission has explained a thousand times how things should be done.
“They killed it already, man.” This is how the CEC president expressed his anger on Monday.
I will translate for you, translator
It turns out that the CEC is going to commission translators to the precincts on May 12 for international observatory work. This is what deputy president of the CEC Abraham Bakhchagulyan said on Monday. The translators are obviously going to be paid, but the fact of the matter is that there are usually translators found within the staff of the international observatory missions, thus, the CEC didn’t have the need to hire additional translators. They are going to be more than just translators. The CEC explained to Bakhchagulyan that the translators hired by the CEC are to prevent and reveal the possible wrong translations of the observatory mission representative. What if the other translators “translate” other subjects incorrectly? In order to avoid such obstacles we propose hiring the translator of the translator of the translator, then his translator and so on. As a result, many workplaces will open and there will be an occasion to pass out a lot of money.