At the first session of the PACE the head of the presidential election 2008 of Armenia John Prescott presented a report on the presidential election.
He mainly said what he said one day after the election, which is that the election was mainly in line with the responsibilities of Armenia against the EU, however there are some shortcomings, especially concerning the credibility of the society toward the electoral system and the outcome of the election. The monitors say that there were three major shortcomings: lack of credibility in the society toward clear separation between parties, lack of credibility toward electoral procedures and unequal conditions for the parties involved in elections. The report reads that despite some important shortcomings, there was a development in the parliamentary elections 2007, which mainly corresponded with the democratic principles and responsibilities against the EU. According to the monitors, during the presidential election 2008 the authorities continuously announced abut their will and intention to improve the electoral system by promising to do their best so that the presidential election fully complied with the democratic standards. “The presidential election was important also due to the fact that through the election the direction of the country’s policy would be defined because according to the RA Constitution the incumbent president Robert Kocharyan could not participate in elections and be elected again. Principally presidential election should be a rival between separate candidates. In fact there was a rival in Armenia between Serzh Sargsyan, who was endorsed by the government, and a number of opposition candidates nominated by opposition parties or powers,” writes the report. The monitors also have reported the following: “The coalition government was endorsing Serzh Sargsyan. As for the opposition, it failed to come to an agreement to endorse one joint candidate. This was the reason why the opposition was separated. The dynamics of the election was changed after the nomination of the first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan. His appearance in the political competition significantly strengthened the competition. It was felt like there was lack of credibility in the society toward the electoral procedures and the legitimacy of elections. There were rumors about electoral falsifications and bribery before the election… It is also a concerning fact that people were saying that the complaints of people were mostly stipulated by the repressions on the part of the authorities,” reads the report. However, the report reads that the boiling point of the processes was reached after the election, especially during the tragic events of March 1. “Despite the fact that the post-election processes are not included in our report, we could not abstain from discussing it. Just following the announcement of the preliminary results of the election L. Ter-Petrosyan announced that there had been numerous violations during the election and that in fact he had won. Besides that, Artur Baghdasaryan put the legitimacy of the election under question, and Vahan Hovhannisyan, who was in the fourth place, resigned from the NA vice-speaker’s position. He explained his resignation with the fact that there had been falsifications and electoral violations. L. Ter-Petrosyan turned the public actions organized for the purpose of supporting his victory into protests and petitioned his supporters join him and not to recognize the outcome of the election. This was followed by protests every day in the center of Yerevan, where the demonstrators were demanding to cancel the outcome of the election and hold a new election. Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters put tents in the Liberty square. At the same time Robert Kocharyan named those demonstrations as an illegal attempt to take the power, which worsened the situation. After that Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters were arrested and accused without grounds, which were evidently stipulated by political motivations. On March 1, early in the morning, the Police started to look for something in the tents and after meeting resistance by the demonstrators decided to “clean up the tent city”. During those events, according to the official information, 31 people were injured, and Ter-Petrosyan de-facto was taken under house arrest. On the same day the demonstrators gathered in another place in Yerevan, where there was a clash with the police. The situation was so critical (according to the official information 7 demonstrators and 1 policeman were killed) that president Kocharyan decided to announce state of emergency in Yerevan because the situation might undermined the national security of the country. After the state of emergency a big number of Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters were arrested, which means that the authorities used very strict methods against the opposition,” reads the report.
After all these things the European monitors said that the election mainly proceeded in line with the responsibilities taken against the EU. Definitely only the European monitors can say that according to which responsibility against the EU those events scrupulously described in the report have happened. “The authorities have initiated a number of reformations in the judicial system, but have not performed sufficient political will to implement them. We are petitioning the authorities to take steps to work out the shortcomings mentioned in this report. Specifically, we are calling on to recover the credibility of the society toward electoral procedures. The limitation of the RA Constitution in the law on dual citizenship are in contradiction with the EU standards and should be raised,” reads the report of the international monitors and petitions to use the method of marking ballots with the fingerprints of voters, which is very successful in a number of European countries. This is all we can say about Prescott’s report, which has become a reason of serious debates in the PACE. The reporter of the A1+ agency from Strasburg has informed that yesterday there were rumors in the PACE that the resolution to be adopted on Armenia would contain an issue of terminating the activities of the Armenian delegation if Armenia fails to implement the assignments to be adopted by the next session in June of this year. Concerning this information the head of the Armenian delegation to the PACE said, “There are no questions about it. No questions are to be proposed concerning the termination of the responsibilities of the Armenian delegation during this session. Today the report on the presidential election will be discussed. We don’t have the report to be discussed on Thursday, thus we can’t say anything about it.” Answering to a question what he thinks about the report presented by Prescott Mr. Harutyunyan said, “There are provisions, which I think are disputable. However generally it is repeating the provisions of the previous report. We will speak about the disputable provisions and will discuss with him. Specifically we will discuss the provision concerning granting passive electoral right to the citizens with dual citizenship. I think that it is unacceptable by almost everyone in Armenia. Hardly there may be any political powers which may agree with this approach. There are some disputable provisions concerning the judicial system, specifically I mean that the dual meanings that are written in the report existed before the recent amendments to the law. Specifically we don’t think that the Administrative Code contains dual meanings because we have agreed it with international experts. In any case I think that the problems written in the report are priority issues for us too, specifically I think that the Electoral Code should be revised and amended, and different parties and sectors should participate in that process, including the civic society.”