Raffi Hovannisian, Opposition Rally, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

RFE/RL reports that Raffi Hovannisian, Armenia’s former Foreign Minister who recently resurfaced in the political arena during the fiasco that was the referendum to amend the constitution, was temporarily detained at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport. Once again, as has been the case for others, it was the former KGB, the National Security Service (NSS), that did the dirty work.

Opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian was reportedly searched and questioned by Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) about his increasingly high-profile political activities on his way to a major international conference on Wednesday.

Hovannisian’s office said he was stopped by an officer of the Armenian successor to the Soviet KGB at Yerevan airport as he was about to board a plane bound for Vienna. “Raffi Hovannisian was questioned about the purpose of the trip, the Armenian constitution and other matters unrelated to airport security,” it said in a statement faxed to RFE/RL.

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“Agent Poghosian, upon making several telephone calls, invited customs agent Karen Petrosian to the scene and instructed him to determine whether Raffi Hovannisian was in violation of relevant customs laws, suggesting a further examination of Hovannisian’s personal papers in a separate room,” it said. “There, under Poghosian’s watch, it was Petrosian’s turn to scour through the documents in pursuit of state secrets.”

The statement added that Hovannisian, who served as Armenia’s first foreign minister in 1992, was allowed to take the delayed flight after the NSS officer photocopied the letter to Kocharian and promised that they will “meet” on his return. “Hovannisian has over the years had several similar experiences — during the Soviet period and in Turkey — but never before in the independent Republic of Armenia whose flag he raised at the United Nations,” it said.

Hovannisian was heading for Ukraine’s capital Kiev to participate in an international forum attended by U.S. Senator John McCain and former Czech President Vaclav Havel. He is due to return to Yerevan on Saturday. The NSS could not be immediately reached for comment on his reported questioning.

Cross posted on New Eurasia.

Unless something extraordinary happens before I leave for England tomorrow morning, this will be my last post on this blog. I will be travelling back home for a workshop sponsored by Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Oxford Internet Institute on the role of the internet in civic participation and democratic conversations in the new democracies of Eastern Europe, and also attending the Second Annual Global Voices Summit in London.

I shall also be holding an event in London to which everyone interested in Armenia and the South Caucasus is invited. Details can be found below.

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Polling Station, Ararat Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

Eurasianet has more on the astonishingly high level of falsification that saw amendments to the constitution passed in a referendum held in Armenia on Sunday. Ironically, given that there have been no free and democratic elections in Armenia since independence was declared in 1991, that’s saying something.

The main opposition complaint concerns the turnout figure for the November 27 referendum. Officials claim over 65 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. Meanwhile, opposition estimates suggest turnout was somewhere between 16-21 percent. The turnout issue is critical because under Armenian law at least one-third of eligible voters must support a referendum proposal for it to be adopted.

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International observers confirmed that the referendum featured instances of abuse, but they stopped short of calling for the invalidation of the results. A statement issued by the Council of Europe’s 14-member observer delegation said the referendum was marred by fraud and ballot-stuffing. “The extremely low voting activity did not correspond to the high figures provided by the electoral commissions,” the statement said. The US State Department echoed the Council of Europe’s concerns. “We call on the government of Armenia to investigate Council of Europe observer reports of serious abuses and fraud,” a State Department statement said.

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Gyumri, Shirak Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

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IYC Press Conference, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

RFE/RL reports on the press conference given today by the largest local election observation NGO in Armenia, It’s Your Choice, which I also attended. Coincidentally, I spent eight hours visiting polling stations on Sunday with IYC’s head, Harutiun Hambartsumian, and so can back up most of what the organization’s report on the conduct of the referendum says.

“Serious violations of the electoral process, illegal voting and especially ballot box stuffing registered on November 27 … do not allow us to recognize the referendum on amendments to Armenia’s constitution as democratic and meeting international standards,” the independent group called It’s Your Choice concluded in a report.

The 12-page report details numerous irregularities that were reported by some 4,000 observers deployed by It’s Your Choice on voting day. Its chairman, Harutiun Hambartsumian, said they visited nearly 60 percent of the polling stations across Armenia.

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The group claimed that ballot box stuffing was a key reason for an unusually high voter turnout reported by the Armenian authorities. “There was more ballot stuffing on November 27 than during the presidential elections of 2003,” Hambartsumian charged at a news conference. He said in one polling station in Yerevan the number of ballots cast was ten times higher than the number of voters counted by It’s Your Choice observers.

“Of course the violations affected the referendum outcome,” added Hambartsumian. “To what extent? Let the Central Election Commission determine that.”

In a breathtaking display of cynicism that typifies his adminstration, the Armenian President is acting as if nothing out of the ordinary happened on Sunday. Well, despite the fact that democratic elections do not exist in Armenia, they were out of the ordinary in so much that never before has anyone seen falsification on this scale before — and that’s saying something.

Anyway, It’s Your Choice has a web site at http://www.iyc.am.

Cross posted on New Eurasia.

Matenadaran, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

After almost everybody realizes the extent of the falsification that defined Sunday’s referendum to amend the constitution, the opposition held another political rally in central Yerevan today. Deprived of electricity, a portable generator had to be moved in to power the amplifiers to preach to the converted, albeit it gathered in larger numbers than yesterday. But then, disaster…

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The U.S. Embassy in Armenia has posted a few bullet points in response to Sunday’s referendum to amend the constitution. One can only hope that a more detailed response is forthcoming this week.

We share the regret of the Council of Europe, whose observers called into serious question the voter turnout figures for the referendum reported by the Armenian government.

We also regret that the Government of Armenia chose not to invite observers from the OSCE´s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, who could have given greater credibility to the results of the voting.

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Harutiun Hambartsumian, head of the domestic election observation NGO It’s Your Choice takes notes while talking to his local coordinator, Massis, Ararat Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online

RFE/RL reports what we already know. The referendum to amend the constitution was rigged to such an astonishing extent that there is now no doubt whatsoever that the Armenian government is not committed to the process of democratization that was meant to bring the former Soviet republic closer to Europe.

The 14-member monitoring team from the council’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (CLRAE) singled out a paradoxically high turnout that was reported by the Armenian authorities despite empty polling stations across the country.

According to preliminary figures released by the Central Election Commission, as many as 1.5 million Armenians, or nearly two thirds of the 2.3 million eligible voters, took part in Sunday’s referendum and 93.8 percent of them voted for the amendments. To pass, the amendments had to be endorsed by at least 767,000 voters. The figures sharply contrast with strong anecdotal evidence of a lack of public interest in the process.

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Opposition Protest, Matenadaran, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian/Hetq Online

Is it just me, but why are there people in the photo above dancing at the front of the pitifully small crowd drawn by the opposition today at the Matenadaran? That the referendum to amend the constitution was falsified to such an extent that most of us are left speechless is beyond doubt. However, the low turnout had more to do with a lack of trust in the authorities here, as well as widespread apathy in society towards almost everything, than the opposition boycott.

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Council of Europe Press Conference, Marriott Armenia Hotel, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian/Hetq Online

CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM IN ARMENIA

GENERAL COMPLIANCE MARRED BY INCIDENTS OF SERIOUS ABUSE

The Council of Europe observers to the Constitutional Referendum held on 27 November 2005 in Armenia regret the decision taken by the authorities which precluded the attendance of any other international observers. The transparency of the referendum was further hampered by the decision of the parliamentary opposition to call on their members to withdraw from the electoral commissions. It is also regretable that political pluralism inside polling stations was not better assisted by a greater number of domestic observers.

The 14-member delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities noted that the Referendum generally reflected the free will of those who voted. However, on voting day the observers witnessed serious abuse in several polling stations which cast a shadow over the credibility of the officially announced turn-out.

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