The elections signified by an incredible number of violations, are over. I spent the election day in the newsroom of the Echannel.am. Complaints and information on various violations kept pouring in. The situation was apparently several times worse in the Regions. Our journalists visited several sites of violations and noted the boldness with which those were being carried out: ballots stuff, voters intimidated, journalists hindered from their work. Reports from Hetq, Echannel, Armnifo, A1plus give me enough background to state, that the authorities most coldheartedly raped the concept of free and fair elections and might as well get away with it. Anyway, below is some official data on the outcome of elections from Echannel.am.
The president of the Central Electoral Commission Garegin Azatyan informed that in the elections of February 19 in 1913 polling stations from 1923 opened in Armenia voted about 1 million 669thousand 114 voters. The following is the breakdown of votes for all candidates:
- Serzh Sargsyan -859 658 votes
- Levon Ter Petrosyan – 349 781 votes
- Arthur Baghdasaryan -271 698 votes
- Vahan Hovhannisyan- 100 545 votes
- Vazgen Manoukyan -20 930 votes
- Tigran Karapetyan -9 747 votes
- Artashes Geghamyan -7 458 votes
- Arman Melikyan – 4 354 votes
- Aram Harutyunyan 3 098 votes
For live chart of election results click here: http://elections.am/ActiveElection.swf
Reports are one thing. Verifiable facts and evidence is another, especially as A1 Plus and Hetq are pretty much part of Ter-Petrossian’s campaign team albeit unofficially.
This is what concerns me most. It is easy to make allegations, but people have got to have proof and be prepared to use the legal system.
Get the votes annulled where possible and so on, that’s what should be happening because yes, Sargsyan’s vote was inflated by vote bribes and other illegalities.
But did Levon win? I don’t see much sign of that. International community and most citizens don’t seem convinced.
However, I personally believe there should be a second round, but anyway, you need to use the courts and not often unverified reports to do so.
Anyway, unless that happens, nothing is going to change so as far as I am concerned, until the opposition and civil society show some maturity, the election is now over for me at least.
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[…] and ballot box stuffing on polling day. Working in the newsroom of Internews, The Armenian Observer received many such complaints himself. […] Complaints and information on various violations kept pouring in. The situation was […]