The local government community head’s election in Arabkir community of Yerevan was unprecedented with the huge capacity of violence.
After the presidential election of February 19 and the tragic events of March 1 the local community government head’s election in Arabkir community was the first election, which proceeded in tense environment and with serious incidents. Almost all the violations and incidents during this election have been recorded and will be sent to the offices of all international organizations in Yerevan.
The first incident happened on Sunday, at 9:20 a.m. Candidate Albert Yeritsyan’s son, Robert Yeritsyan stabbed one of Hovhannes Shahinyan’s activists with a knife. After this incident it became clear that Arabkir community had become a “shelter” of many criminals who had come from different communities of Yerevan. One could see the loyalists of Albert Yeritsyan at all precincts in Arabkir community, who were wearing black clothes. Most of them were traveling from one precinct to another, and others were standing at a permanent location.
There were also a lot of policemen in the community, but their presence was not adequate. The police officers of precincts were not paying attention to any incidents. We witnessed such incident in #4/39 precinct of Arabkir community. At 6 p.m. about 40 loyalists of Yeritsyan broke in the precinct and roughly instructed the commission members to do what they wanted. Policemen were calmly watching. When we asked them why they were not interfering and why they did not do their job, one of the policemen who was in charge of keeping security there said the following: “No one tells us to do anything and that is why we are not doing anything.” It is not clear who should instruct them to do their job in such cases. Shortly the secretary of the fourth territorial electoral commission, PA member Vahe Eloyan arrived and said the following words: “That’s OK, everything is fine.” However it did not help to change the situation and those guys were still instructing the commission members to handle their people respectfully. When the situation was about changing, a group of special police security officers arrived. According to the head of the commission Arayik Mehrabyan, that chaos started when a commission member, because of being tired too much, wrote something against a citizen’s name who had not voted yet.
The situation was tense at #4/24 precinct too. Yeritsyan’s activists near this precinct were coordinated by RPA member Armen Martoyan (the latter is famous with the fact that he participated in the demonstrations near Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s house and artificial marches). At about 6:30 someone said that the loyalists of Yeritsyan had tried to organize carousel voting but the head of the commission had seen that and stopped them. However, the head of the commission says that the secretary of the commission refused to write in the protocol that the commission member in charge of handing out ballots had given two ballots to a voter. During our conversation the secretary of the commission, representative of Heritage party Samvel Ghulyan said that he was the one who could write in the protocol and did not let the head of the commission write his complaints in the protocol. At that time the secretary of the corresponding territorial commission Vahe Eloyan was here and told us that the head of the commission had the right to write his concerns in the protocol but it seemed that he was against that too. Furthermore, the head of the territorial electoral commission Albert Frangulyan told us that the head of the commission had the right to write complaints in the protocol and promised to call the secretary of Precinct #4/24 and remind him about his rights and obligations. In one hour it turned out that Frangulyan had not done anything to prevent that law violation. Eventually the head of the mentioned commission succeeded and could write his concerns in the protocol. In almost all precincts it was written in the protocols that there were people from Yeritsyan’s group wearing black clothes near all precincts, who impeded the process of elections.
On the election day there were a number of minibuses (#56 and 41) bussing people to precincts escorted by Yeritsyan’s people. In some places even people were taken to precincts by taxi. Witnesses say that there were a number of minibuses at Manushyan street (in the part where it crosses with Papazian street), where voters were given bribes and then taken to their precincts to vote for Yeritsyan. It is worth mentioning that the business of #56 microbuses used to belong to the head of Robert Kocharyan’s security service Grisha Sarkisian, which was sold to “Benzene Rubo” later (Hart Ughi LLC), and the business of #41 microbuses belongs to Melik Gasparian. We also met a big number of such microbuses in the area which is called Korean Valley. In this area the process of bussing people to their precincts was coordinated by Albert Yeritsyan’s proxy in #4/02 precinct Hovhannes Stepanyan. When we asked him what he was doing there he said that he has the right to be everywhere he wants. One of the drivers said, “The precincts are far from here and we were told by Yeritsyan’s pre-election headquarter to bus people to those precincts.”
At 5 p.m. one of Yeritsyan’s loyalists was taken to the police department from the precinct which was located in the house of blind people behind the market place of Komitas. The head of Yerevan Police Nerses Nazaryan instructed to take him to the police because when the latter asked a group of Yeritsyan’s loyalists who had gathered near that precinct what they were doing there one of those young guys started quarreling with him. The situation was the same at almost all precincts. Many people said that voters were offered bribe in the amount of five thousand dram and more, even in the evening this amount reached 20.000. Heritage party has observed cases of bribery as well. It is natural that the police officers at the precincts did not see those cases of bribe distribution either and the guys wearing black clothes felt free in their presence and were doing all what they wanted. Among those guys there were many people who are famous as criminals with nicknames and there have been many incidents with their participation as well.
Specifically the situation was so dangerous at 4 p.m. that the number of policemen increased rapidly in the community. Even the deputy chief of the police who was also responsible for March 1 police operations Alexander Afyan was in the community. The latter is a close relative of one of the candidates, Albert Yeritsyan. It is also worth mentioning that a number of the karate federation members were distributing bribes as well, who from time to time appeared at different precincts. However this was not the only thing they have done. Witnesses say that some of them even participated in the bloodshed at Tbilisi prospect early in the morning.
These are only a small part of the events that have happened in Arabkir community on the voting day. The other facts will be published soon and they may help the “reformations of the third generations” which are done in support of the authorities.
P.S. After the incident in the Tbilisi prospect the head of #4 territorial electoral commission Albert Frangulyan told us that the head of the Arabkir community police department Artavazd Ghazaryan had told him that the mentioned incident is not connected with the elections. Despite this announcement yesterday the police wrote a statement in the police web page, which states that a citizen named Tigran Tadevosyan had visited the police station and confessed in that crime. The mentioned citizen is Robert Yeritsyan’s driver.