The monitors of the European local and regional governments congress came up with an announcement stating that they are mostly satisfied with the process of Yerevan city council elections. “Generally it was organized in consistence with the European standards,” said the head of the monitors’ group, Nigel Mermagen from the UK.
“From this point of view, the monitoring mission observed a significant improvement compared to the local government elections in September 2008. Even though the delegation of the congress said that the political actors in Armenia should change their behavior in order to improve both the electoral procedures and democracy culture,” said Mr. Mermagen.
This statement surprised the journalists who told him that they had seen something different other than what the international monitor said concerning their observations on the election day. “I don’t think that our opinions are fully against the reality because we are going to publish a detailed report too. There are many aspects which were not consistent with democratic values but generally we think that the elections were positive. I think that it is not right to go through details now but the details will be included in our report,” said Mermagen and informed that they would publish the final report in October.
A journalist from A1+ news agency said that there had not been any elections like this in the past when there was so much violence as during the elections of May 31. “It is not in our competence as monitors. However throughout our meetings with parties from the beginning of the month we have received such information and will include it in our report,” said N. Marmagen.
Journalists also asked how much time they had spent in restaurants and cafes on the election day. On the election day, at 6p.m., when the environment in polling stations was tense in parallel with ballot stuffing, the international monitors were sitting in the Triumph cafe. By the way, the manner of behavior and estimations of this monitoring group look pretty like the behavior of the international institutions during the previous elections. For instance, on the election day of the Kentron community mayor in 2008, when the environment in polling stations was tense, the international monitors were sitting and enjoying their time in the Central and Dolmama restaurants in Yerevan. Mr. Mermagen got angry at this question and told about how long they had worked that day in a high voice. In the precinct 8/05 they ignored the complaints of journalists concerning ballot stuffing and violence against journalists. They were listening to the representatives of the governmental powers and did not pay attention to the opposition proxies in the precinct. The impression was that they were monitoring the precinct only for the purpose of demonstrating that they were working, and they ignored the information concerning massive ballot stuffing and violence. Had the European monitors prepared the “positive” opinion they expressed in advance? The head of the monitors’ delegation got angry at this question and said in a high voice, “We are very disappointed to see that you think that we had prepared the text in advance. We have spent a lot of time in Yerevan and met with a lot of people from the opposition, government and mass media. I am more open in terms of the report. Certainly I have my opinion concerning all what I have seen, but we have other members of the delegation, and also people, who have been invited to express their opinions.”
He said that in the precinct they had met with monitors and proxies but did not say anything about meeting journalists definitely because of the fact that there had not been such thing there.
“I don’t think that we could do more than we could in the framework of our powers. We knew about what was happening, we knew where the tense points were, and we returned there and saw several things, which will be included in our report. We will also speak of the places where everything proceeded well,” said the head of the delegation to justify their passive work.
We wander what Mermagen would think about such “positive” elections with violence and violations in the Great Britain. In answer to this question the European monitor said that they would never think that elections were integral in Armenia. He also added that Armenia had to do a lot of work to organize good elections. Mr. Mermagen said that there had been shortcomings and violations, which could change the final outcome of the elections but would not change the legality. Probably the European observer knew about the fact that the general prosecutor would demand to re-count the votes of the 8 precincts in Malatia-Sebastia community. It seems that with this statement he made a hint not to hope that the results may be considered invalid even if the level of violations has been too high. In the end of the press-conference a member of the monitors’ delegation Antonela Congollati was trying to justify their actions and find a solution out of the situation.
Before the press-conference Mermagen met with representatives of the ANC Levon Zurabyan and Vladimir Karapetyan and talked to them for some time. The latter said that they had provided the monitor with information concerning electoral bribe, electoral violations and use of administrative resources. Mr. Karapetyan says that Marmegan was not surprised to hear about the violations. Even more, he said that he had witnessed a lot of violations too. We wander whether the opinion Mr. Marmegan expressed was consistent with the information he had. In answer to this question the ANC representative said, “I think that they don’t relate to us seriously.”