Armenian Council of America appealed Miguel Angel Moratinos, OSCE Chairman in Office, with a letter of protest on the 12 May parliamentary elections in Armenia.

The letter says: “We are writing to you to express our disappointment with your initial report about the May 12th parliamentary elections in Armenia.

Your initial report stated that the elections were held in accordance to international standards, yet, it goes on to say that many violations were observed where fake identification cards were used or votes cast to small parties were placed on the batches of pro-government parties, etc.
It has now become more evident that the reported violations were on a much larger scale and more frequent, casting serious doubts on the whole process.

Your post-election interim report even stated that “In 35 percent of the 108 polling stations where counting was observed, the PEC (precinct election commission) members had difficulties completing the results protocols,” and added that those protocols were “filled out incompletely or incorrectly.”

The favorable tone in your preliminary assessment is at the very least troubling and bewildering to not only the population of Armenia, but also the Diaspora Armenians, whose only wish is to see a prosperous and democratic Armenia where the rule of law prevails and its citizen’s basic rights are respected. In that regard, your report was an outright blow to the dignity and the aspirations of the Armenian people who once again were deprived of their right to elect their representatives in a free and transparent manner. By lowering the bar, you have given the government of Armenia the green light to continue falsifying election results with impunity and ignore the will of its own people.

Your initial report did not even consider the fact that in the newly elected Parliament the opposition will hold less than 20 seats out of 131. This by itself should have been sufficient to raise doubts about the outcome of the elections. All records show that in no country, where majority of the population lives below poverty level, the ruling parties can get such an overwhelming mandate.

We believe that the citizens of Armenia are entitled to fair and transparent elections that would produce an electoral body that truly represents the people’s will. We also believe that your organization plays a vital role in promoting democratic principles and values in countries such as Armenia. Consequently, any assessment made by your organization is immensely important not only for those who are truly striving for democracy, but also for those who since the famously rigged 2003 parliamentary elections were busy developing new and sophisticated mechanisms of election fraud. It is our sincere hope that your final report will not be politically driven but rather be much more comprehensive and reflective of the facts”.

Armenia’s largest vote-monitoring organization echoed on Monday international observers’ largely positive verdict on Saturday’s parliamentary elections which it said were more democratic than the previous ones.

The non-governmental organization It’s Your Choice (IYC) monitored the election campaign and deployed about 4,000 observers in most of the polling stations across the country on voting day.

“These elections were better and took place in a more civilized atmosphere than the past elections,” the IYC chairman, Harutiun Hambartsumian, told RFE/RL, presenting their preliminary findings. “Of course, there were shortcomings, violations. But there was a clear improvement.”

Hambartsumian said the Armenian authorities failed to create a level playing field for all major contenders and used their control of election commissions and other “government resources” to retain a comfortable majority in the National Assembly. He said IYC observers did not witness instances of vote buying which opposition parties claim were widespread. But he said they did see busloads of people transported to polling stations.

“There was busing of individuals to polling stations that became overcrowded, complicating the voting process,” Hambartsumian said. “Besides, our observers saw ballot stuffing attempts in a number of polling stations. There were also instances of multiple voting.”

“Since those violations were not widespread, they could not have affected election results,” he added.

Anyway, polls should be random and well distributed — not limited to a particular audience or group of people. Besides, what’s to stop one person who supports Impeachment tellign their fellow supporters to sms in? This is the problem.

Of course, the Republican Party vote appears grossly inflated and I’m sure people suspect this was through vote buying, but I don’t think that Impeachment can say that they cleared the five percent threshold for entering parliament on the proportional system.

Anyway.

You also say that “This SMS poll of course cannot be considered as indicative of the real elections”, while many social scientists and statisticians would argue that a sample of 600 could be treated as a good enough indicator with 4% margin for error. It seems to me that you have missed the sarcasm and satire of my posting which highlights the fact that the results of the statistical data closest to official exit-polls (which has also been quoted as nearest to being “official”) stands in direct contradiction to the election results announced later by CEC.

After you said that I have been “spreading” disinformation, you then say that I am “honest in specifying how exactly” I arrived at placing “Impeachment” block at No1 place, rather then at No2 place after “Heritage”. To say that I am “spreading misleading information” and then to say that I’m “honest” is a contradiction, rather then an elaboration.

I am not going to ask you to amend the wording in your post, as I’m sure you are busy enough on day like this (although if you choose to do that later on, that would be apreciated…). I am just going to write this brief response so that the readers will be clear. Readers can also view the post at http://azat.wordpress.com