There are a several methods for effective fight against electoral and political corruption. In today’s interview, Mr. Karen Zadoyan, AYLA President, “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” Project Manager, Coordinator of the Secretariat of CSOs’ Anti-Corruption Coalition, presented them based on international experience.
According to him, first we have should understand the opportunities provided by legislation to avoid corruption during the elections.” The main violations during the elections in Armenia are distribution of money to voters and transportation of the citizens to polling stations. If voting shall become a duty rather than a right as it is in several countries, the corruption risks will decrease. There should be a system of fines.” Karen Zadoyan said and added that in some countries transportation of voters to polling stations is prohibited, and if there is such a provision in our legislation we may observe some decrees of corruption.
The AYLA President considers that the most vital precondition is the existence of political will.” If there is political will we can fight against corruption, otherwise, civil society and the opposition must fight by developing serious methods of control”, said Karen Zadoyan. “There are 1997 polling stations. The civil society alliances and the political party alliances should have at list two persons who bear their values, I assure that this problem in Armenia will be solved problem. However today the potential of the civil society and the political parties allows to conduct such supervision only in some 70-100 polling stations,” Mr. Zadoyan said.
Mr. Suren Krmoyan, the RA Deputy Minister of Justice agreed with the speaker with the part of improving mechanisms and introducing new technologies. He noted that e-democracy is planned to introduce in the anti-corruption strategy.
Varuzhan Hoktanyan, the Executive Director of Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center (TIAC), agreed with the idea that there should be political will. According to him, the fact that the number of observers is insufficient due to the lack of recourses. He emphasized that the problem should always be in the focus of their attention.
