“The official campaign starts one day after the set date of the registration of parties and candidates and ends one day before the election.” This is a quotation from the RA Electoral Code, which the 9 presidential candidates must follow when organizing their campaigns.
Despite the fact that the presidential campaign is going to start on January 21 many of the candidates, who haven’t even been registered have started to campaign since the last year. Moreover, as expected they still deny that their activity has been campaigning. For example, starting from the first days of this year it is possible to notice in many regions of the country young boys and girls from the MIAK party, who in the framework of the “Door-to-door” action wear coats, which reads in the back, “our vote to Serzh Sargsyan.” Furthermore, they distribute printed materials, which read, “10 changes, which the MIAK is expecting from the RA President Serzh Sargsyan” and “10 reasons why we should vote for Serzh Sargsyan.” Who can insist that this is not campaigning? Or is the making “agreement” process with RA citizens on part of the ARF not campaign? By doing this the young ARF members are traveling in various communities of Armenia and gathering “agreements” for their presidential candidate Vahan Hovhannisyan. By signing this agreement the citizen agrees with the platform provisions, which the ARF candidate is offering. Let us quote certain parts from that agreement, in which the authors didn’t even try to hide that this activity is direct campaign. “As a future president Hovhannisyan obliges to provide a number of provisions for the development, security and prosperity of the country, such as free and fair elections, social amendments, political stability…” According to this initiative of the ARF they are following the goal of observing their chances of victory, assess their strengths and use those results in their further strategy and tactics. “This is the agreement to be made between each citizen and future president. That is to know the expectations of citizens when casting the ballot in the box. And what is the candidate going to do to satisfy the wishes and expectations of citizens?” reads the material placed in the vahanpresident.am website. Also, for the first stage the ARF has printed 400.000 agreements but the law says that the candidates have the right to use their campaign means only after January 21. When speaking to us the spokesperson of the ARF Supreme Body Spartak Seyranyan mentioned that the agreement of the ARF candidate signed with citizens has nothing to do with campaigning. It has an informative purpose. And the party itself provided means for the publication. “That is not campaigning. Those funds have got nothing to do with the party campaign funds. Those are included in our current political expenses. Besides that the law doesn’t define what can be done in the pre-election period,” says Seyranyan. To our question whether those activities on the part of candidates are not considered campaigning actions Seyranyan said, “I publish the Yerkir newspaper with the same logic, where different people request the citizens to vote for Hovhannisyan. Shall I not publish any more?” The Legal State party has also conducted unauthorized campaign. The representatives of the party again all over Armenia traveled to distribute the “Artur Baghdasaryan political portrait” brochures (5000 copies), where besides the activities of their leader in government they have published the approaches of Baghdasaryan about elections. For example, “we must make the right choice not because of money, intimidation or other means but based on laws, freedom and fairness,” “struggle for your future because you and your children are going to live here,” “it’s better to have 100 owners of stores instead of one owner for 100 stores,” etc. Besides that, this time Baghdasaryan found a unique way of wishing happy New Year to people. He sent them a brochure together with a New Year card with the picture of his family. When speaking of the candidates and the illegalities perpetrated by their supporters we’d like to mention that the order of the campaign activities must be supervised by election commissions. And in cases when the candidates exceed the amount to be spent on the campaign the Central Electoral Commission applies to the court to annul the registration of the given candidate. One of the NA MPs, who actively participated in the discussion of the Code yesterday mentioned that before the launch of the official campaign all kinds of actions, which would look like campaign activities must be prevented and forbidden. That is the function of the CEC and other relevant bodies and they should do this without commenting. To our question whether it is a violation of the law that Vahan Hovhannisyan on January 10-12 had meetings with the medical personnel, representatives of the science and education sectors our interviewee responded, “if during the meeting Hovhannisyan spoke about the upcoming presidential elections then yes. Any activity conducted before the official campaign, which is somehow linked with the elections is considered illegal.”