“During the May 12 elections the influence of money was connected mainly with the Prosperous Armenia party. The RPA was using its administrative resources,” announced Arthur Sakunts, the head of the Vanadzor office of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, who had monitored the elections in Lori and Tavoush marzes. “Elections didn’t correspond to international standards and proceeded in the environment of violating the RA Electoral Code and CEC decisions. All this had an impact on the results of the elections,” said Sakunts. He announced that in Lori marz the ARF, RPA, Prosperous Armenia and the ULP were giving bribes, where after 7:00 PM the “dog wouldn’t recognize the owner” (so many bribes had been given out, people lost track of who had given to whom). During yesterday’s press conference, Sakunts also stated that the residents of Shirakamut and Arevashogh villages of Lori were threatened that if they didn’t vote for the RPA they would not complete the construction of apartments for the earthquake zone. Nonetheless, the international observers said the conduct of the election showed progress. Sakunts said all the international observers represented political organizations, which means their evaluations “could be made from political expediency. We are a human rights organization. I will tell you a secret without giving names. On May 19, when the observers were discussing the evaluation, only two CIS observers and one Swedish observer said everything was OK; the others said the election did not comply with the standards of democracy. The evaluation that followed is evidence of the political factor.” The government agencies are responsible for the non-democratic elections, however, the Vanadzor office of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly noticed that if the civil society institutions, observation missions, proxies, and others would work more effectively, a number of violations and fraud would be possible to prevent. By the way, the Vanadzor office had accredited 54 observers, but only 36 observed the election. According to Sakunts, the others were afraid.
