Today, Ms Heidi Hautala, Head of the delegation from the European Parliament, representative of the OSCE/ODIHR international observers’ group made a remarkable statement. She spoke about the election bribes and pressures.
Ms Hautala said that they had conducted observers’ mission in Yerevan, Kotayk and Armavir. She reminded that the European Union had supported these elections financing introduction of new technologies, in particular the acquisition of the voter identification devices. “We saw the work of these devices on the voting day, and noticed that the devices enable to see that they dispel concerns that occurred in the past. Armenia’s authorities have worked intensively to improve the electoral process, however but would also like to stress that there were some problem areas,” she said and explained that she meant bribes and pressure. “In this sense, there are some circumstances. Indeed, the electoral procedure was complicated, not always the voters understood it. However, the people at polling stations carried out serious effort to ensure the complex process. Unfortunately the process was shaken, because we received a lot of information from trustworthy sources about the lection bribes and intimidation. Especially towards the employees of schools and hospitals, civil servants and employees of various companies as well as information of the abuse of administrative resources. It is necessary to eliminate these factors in order to ensure the confidence of the electors in the electoral process. The role of the civil society is very important in this sense,” Head of the delegation from the European Parliament said.
