June 26, 2007


Parliamentary Election Update

PanArmenian.net reports that the final verdict on the 12 May parliamentary election has been made at the opening of the summer session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. As has been noted on this blog and by many other observers, the election did represent some improvement over past elections although significant problems still remain. The opposition also failed to offer an alternative.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In general, parliamentarian election in Armenia met the commitments taken by the country in front of the Council of Europe, Leo Platvoet, the head of PACE mission on observing parliamentarian elections of Armenia stated, speaking in the opening of PACE’s summer session in Strasbourg.

“The May 12 parliamentarian elections in Armenia were held mostly in accordance with the commitments taken in front of the CoE and democratic standards. However, shortcomings still remain. Armenian authorities, as well as other participants of the electoral processes displayed political will for improving the process of organizing elections, though some problems remain yet,” Platvoet stressed.

According to the rapporteur, shortcomings and inaccuracies some of which are rather serious, were fixed in the vote counting process, which casts shadow on the preliminary positive evaluation.

“After gaining independence not a single election was held in compliance with democratic standards in Armenia. “The May 12, 2007 parliamentarian elections became a “try cock”, which demonstrated Armenia’s political wish to organize true democratic elections. Unfortunately, it seems that the greater part of opposition parties lost the support of people and weakened its positions after deciding to boycott the constitutional referendum in 2005,” the report underlines.

[…]

Posted by Onnik @ 4:15 pm. Filed under: Armenia, Democracy, Politics, Caucasus, Elections, Europe, 2007 Parliamentary Election




3 Comments »

The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2007/06/26/parliamentary-election-update/trackback/

  1. And this mean the final act of funeral ceremony for our “traditional opposition”.
    We have new country, with new political field and a good chance to achieve good governance standards.
    I’m really happy with it.

    PS Have you received my email about ostriches?

    Comment by uzogh — June 26, 2007 @ 5:10 pm

  2. Ostriches? No.

    Comment by Onnik — June 26, 2007 @ 6:10 pm

  3. RFE/RL’s Armenia Liberty also has more on this story:

    Observers from the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) have reaffirmed their largely positive assessment of the Armenian authorities’ handling of the May 12 parliamentary elections, while noting major irregularities in the vote count and tabulation.

    “The Parliamentary elections in Armenia, held on 12 May 2007, were largely held in line with Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections, although shortcomings remain,” they said in a report unveiled at the ongoing PACE session in Strasbourg on Monday.

    “The Armenian Authorities, as well as other electoral stakeholders, showed the political will to address previous shortcomings and to improve the conduct of these elections, although some issues remain unaddressed,” concluded the report.

    The nearly three dozen PACE members monitored the elections as part of the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) that also comprised representatives of the OSCE and the European Parliament. In its preliminary May 13 report, the IEOM concluded that the vote largely conformed to democratic standards.

    Still, the OSCE observers, who accounted for the bulk of the 400-strong IEOM, toned down the praise in a subsequent follow-up statement. They said counting of ballots in a large number of polling stations and their subsequent tabulation by district election commissions was deeply flawed.

    The PACE monitors echoed the criticism, saying that the vote count was “protracted in most cases.” They reported “significant errors” in 8 percent of polling stations observed and “deliberate falsifications of the results” in some of those precincts.

    “Regrettably, the situation deteriorated during the tabulation process,” the report said, adding that the process was “generally disorganized.”

    Like their OSCE colleagues, the PACE observers deplored the “inexplicable” delay in the publication by Armenia’s Central Election Commission of precinct-by-precinct vote results from Yerevan. “In addition, by a decision of the CEC, the special computer network was not used by the Yerevan [district election commissions] to enter their results,” read their report.

    The report also contains a list of recommendations which its authors believe would further improve the conduct of Armenian elections. In particular, they urged the authorities in Yerevan to enact more amendments to Armenia’s Election Code, ensure a proper vote count and tabulation, investigate reports of vote irregularities, and address “intertwinement, at all levels, of political and business interests.” The report also called on the country’s government-controlled electronic media to set less “exorbitant” prices of campaign advertising by political parties and individual candidates.

    Comment by Onnik — June 26, 2007 @ 10:08 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Comments are currently moderated. If your comment does not appear immediately, there is no need to submit it again.

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>


         

 




banner

Get free blog up and running in minutes with Blogsome | Theme designs available here

The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of any publication or organization that he may be working for now, in the past or in the future.