Election Day: Commentary – Yerevan Election violations shock Karabagh Reporter

YEREVAN, Armenia – If I were not present at the council elections that took place on May 31st in Yerevan, I would never think that it can be so different from the elections we had in Karabagh.

And there were many differences starting from organization till the behavior of the commission members and proxies.

While covering Yerevan elections I was very often thinking that it would be better if Karabagh Central Elections Committee members never try to learn from their Armenian colleagues.

IWPR invited two reporters from Karabakh to Yerevan to cover the Yerevan council elections. We were given an opportunity to be present at several precincts and watch the elections process.

Right in the first precinct I attended I witnessed the following; in the 2/6 precinct located at Nor Nork 4 voters were taken to the precinct by buses N123. Voters were also brought to the precincts by cabs. In Avan community mainly it was Taxi service Z cars that took voters to the precincts and buses that also belong to the same service. There were various publications in the newspapers that this taxi service belongs to the member of Republican Party, city council candidate, son of ex vice president Andranik Margaryan, Taron Margaryan.

In another 2/8 precinct that is also located in the suburbs of Yerevan, proxy of the Republican party was checking all the details of the citizens that were coming to vote and according to him he was going to present those details to the Republican party. In more than ten precincts that we attended, during the voting process in front of the voting booths you could see two and in some cases three people standing there.

In 2/4 precinct located in Nor Nork on the elections day, the poster of Artak Avetisyan, a city council candidate from “Prosperous Armenia” Party, was still hanging on the wall of the precinct. But that’s not all: the candidate himself was going from one precinct to another, talking to people who came to vote, greeting hugging them. Earlier I met this candidate at another precinct and when I was shooting the precinct he said; “Don’t shoot my car, that bus looks much better.”

And when I saw him at another 2/4 precinct,  Avetisyan asked if we were chasing him. I told him that no, we are reporters and we are going from one precinct to another. He got angry and started to yell saying that my colleague and I do not have the right to take his picture.

“I will take you to the court and they will fire you”,-he said. Then he took out his cell phone and said “Now you tell me, how it feels if I take your photo.”

I mentioned that I was a reporter and that I was doing my job, and that according to the law he doesn’t have a right to be at the precinct on the elections day if he is not voting.

I also witnessed several violations at 8/17 precinct located at Malatia Sebastia community, where I stayed till the end of the counting process. I entered the precinct at about 19:52, where there were only few voters left. At sharp 20:00 o’clock the precinct was closed, but it took around an hour and 20 minutes from the head of the election commission to ask people out from the precinct and as he said “to eat something and then start the counting process.”

Though they started the counting, it was interrupted for four to five times with 20-30 minutes. It was obvious that some members of the commission including the head were concerned about something, and the presence of the reporters was putting even more pressure on them. I could feel that something was wrong.

 I should also say that before starting the counting the registrar of the voters was not in the room for some time, but when they understood that I had noticed it they brought it back at that very moment. During the breaks, members of the commission were also leaving the voting room giving the reason that they need to have a cup of coffee or smoke, although they were all smoking during the counting process too. It was obvious that they were discussing something in the next room, in the meantime the representative of Republican Party that was also presented as an observer gave himself the right to count the votes that Republican Party received as well as make noises during the whole counting process.

During one of the breaks I noticed that the votes for the “Rule of Law” Party were not on the table which after a while was brought back to its place with the same party representative. The latter after counting the votes refused to tell the number. The president of the commission whispered the number to him, meanwhile others who counted the votes told the numbers according to the ballots counted by themselves. During the counting process a guy appeared in the room from the Prosperous Armenia party and the he left after a while.

Anyway, the counting process ended with the most absurd conclusion for me; the head of the commission suggested to validate two of the votes that were invalidated since people voted for the Republicans by putting a plus (+) instead of the established check mark. He explained that he wants the votes for this party to be more than those in the other precincts. Even my presence didn’t constrain him and he told me, “Report that it was the decision of the commission.”

And the surprising thing is that even proxies of other parties didn’t say anything including National Armenian Congress who claims to be an opposition.

Of course both for this and for other precinct commission members it would be more desirable not to have any reporters there and anything reported, but I guess they couldn’t block our presence in all precincts just like they did in case of my colleague, who wanted to participate in the counting process at the 07/07 precinct at Malatia Sebastia but was not allowed inside.

According to RA law reporters are allowed to go into the precinct even after 20:00 when the voting is finished. Calls from Central Election Committee to the head of the above mentioned precinct didn’t help; after spending around 30 minutes at the doors of the precinct my colleague was not able to enter the precinct and to watch the counting process.

It is a pity that in Armenia which stands as an example for Nagorno Karabagh elections are being held in such a way. You can never experience “Armenian” way of treating the reporters, proxies, observes and commission members in Karabakh. May be in this case Armenia should learn from Karabakh.

By Anahit Danielyan, a correspondent for “Analitikon” monthly journal and Armenian “Hetk” media in Nagorno Karabakh. She is also a member of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting Cross Caucasus Journalism Network.

Election Day: Violations, Intimidation at Precincts

During the May 31 Yerevan elections, a young journalist from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), Manushak Tavrizyan, was not able to watch the vote-counting process because she was thrown out by the election commission.

About 19:45 she visited 08/02 and 08/01 precincts in Malatia-Sebastia. The two precincts were situated in the same school №152.

“I asked for the commission president and introduced myself. He didn’t tell his name, instead ordering to leave the polling centre, that he has no idea about the news organization I represented and started to push me,” said Tavrizyan, who repeated the process at both precincts, before, she reported, they “finally, they pushed me out by force.”

It’s illegal, but effective. If you don’t want people watching the elections, you make them want to leave. Bullying and pressuring of observers was as big a violation as ever during the Yerevan elections on May 31.

 While ballot-stuffing seemed to dominate the list of complaints for the city election, there were numerous reports across the city to different watchdog NGOs about bullying of observers and journalists and sometimes, even physical violence.

 For example, journalist Gohar Vezeryan from Fourth Power newspaper was punched in the stomach by bodyguards of Republican MP Levon Sargsyan at precinct 09/01 at Nalbandyan School. Her crime? To ask why he wasn’t voting in the neighborhood where he lives, Arabkir.

 Meanwhile, at precinct 05/17 at School 93 in Davtashen, a group of men identifying themselves as Republican proxies prowled the precinct grounds. When confronted, one of the men in the group physically attacked a staffer from one of the U.S. AID-funded legal ambulances sent to investigate the incident.

 Artak Kirakosyan, coordinator for the voter rights hotline/legal ambulance run by the Human Rights in Armenia NGO, said these elections actually were no different from the presidential election in February 2008.

 “At first there were many opinions and information that during Yerevan council elections will be used other skills and methods to falsify elections results, but the same violations toward journalists, observers and issues with stuffings,” he said.

Certain precincts had more complaints than others. There were at least three harassment complaints registered at Malatia-Sebastia’s Precinct 08/18, according to the HRA hotline and caucasusreports.com/IREX CMSPA/IWPR reports.

 Arpine Hakyan, an attractive, 24-year-old woman-observer working with Transparency International in Malatia-Sebastia’s Precinct 08/18 yesterday, said she was prepared for being pressured – but she never expected the type of intimidation she received.

One after another, four young men would sidle up to her and rub against her body what she described as a sexual manner.

 “I was so scared,” says Haykyan, who stayed at the station after calling for help from Transparency International.  “I didn’t know what to do.”

In the same precinct 08/18, an observer from Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Gayane Arshkyan is going to take the precinct to court.

“I was doing my job trying to observe the situation, during the vote-counting I asked the head of committee to announce the vote-numbers louder for all of us present, and guys from Republican Party started to push me and ordered not to interrupt, shouting at me,” said Arshakyan.

At precinct 09/03, the Republican party chairman threatened to report voter Alina Kharatyan when she complained someone else had signed in using her name. The police ignored her protests, according to the HRA voter hotline reports.

-By Gayane Avetisyan and Marianna Pepayan/Caucasusreports.com

Election Day: Photo Essay – Yerevan Elections in pictures

Across this young voter's forehead is the name of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), the opposition party started by former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan. The girl and thousands of others attended one last rally on Friday, May 29, in front of the Manthanaderan Museum in Central Yerevan. PHOTO BY GAYANE AVETISYAN.

 

 

A voter on election day.

An observer keeps an eye on an open ballot box during the election on May 31. PHOTO BY IA GAVASHELI.

Commission members of a local Yerevan precinct counting ballots after the polls closed. PHOTO BY SOPHIO EBRALIDZE.

 

In Precinct 08/19 (Malatia-Sebastia, where many irregularities were discovered), an observer noted an unstamped envelope. The non-stamped envelopes are usually a sign of ballot stuffing, and this vote was invalidated, but the precinct chairman hid all other envelopes so no one could see the remaining ballots. PHOTO BY SOPHIO EBRALIDZE.

 

Later, commission members at precinct 08/19 took a dinner break between counting, and left the ballot box alone - another potential opportunity for ballot stuffing or other tampering with vote counts. PHOTO BY SOPHIO EBRALIDZE.

The chairman of the commission at precinct 08/19 gazes at the piles of ballots before him. PHOTO BY SOPHIO EBRALIDZE.

It ultimately took the commission at precinct 8/19 four hours to count less than 900 ballots. PHOTO BY SOPHIO EBRALIDZE.

Election Day: End-Of-Day Reactions to Yerevan Elections

Ched Flego, IFES, Director

On the positive side, we saw an improvement over previous elections in some of the procedures, and the polling place layout in many places worked well, particularly where the chairman of the PEC controlled the number of people in polling places. There seemed to be an improvement in the voting lists, too.

But there were still polling places where there was a lack of control, where there was a lot of confusion, and there was anger and shouting between the observers and PEC commission members. In one case we witnessed something close to a brawl at 5/13. The vote showed that though people are no longer voting for a community head, those old local oligarch loyalties predominate. They provided transport and their strategy must have been to organize many voters early, because in several districts we saw higher-than-normal turnouts.

Samvel Matirosyan, blogger/new media consultant

Yerevan City council elections reported interesting changes in the  Armenian internet information sphere. Despite the fact that the number of internet users has been growing in the last year and the number of visitors to Armenian on-line media has also increased, there was less online interest shown on this election. If during the last presidential elections, on-line media mostly did not work because of the overloading of the servers, today we encountered more passivity. Major on-line media show 10-25 % increase in visits as compared with the week. It means, we usually see such increase on Mondays after Saturday/Sunday, when nothing unusual happens in the city. The only exception today is A1plus that is showing 50 % increase and separately implemented A1plus Elections 2009 project. However, even in this case the number of visitors was unusually low. The same can be said about blogs and forums, where elections have been less discussed and reported on than in former times.

However, this time wide usage of new technologies and new media has been recorded. For example, hundreds of reports on elections have been recorded using Twitter.com. The same can be said about social networking sites, particularly facebook.com, where lots of notes have been taken on this issue. This time new media has showed that they can be more dynamic than traditional on-line media.

Artak Kirakosyan, Civil Society Institute/ARA (ran voter hotline), Vice-President
This year the elections are the same there is no specific difference. But the main thing is that people have been really active this year during local elections, which is a very good sign. There was an opinion before the elections that there would be new types of violations, but actually it’s the same handwriting. Check out our website for violation. After 6 p.m., our hotline got a lot more active and we had many more calls.

Gegham Vartanyan, Internews, E-Channel Editor
This year was not such a big difference from the last elections, according to our reporters in the field. But this time there was many more voters, and they are active and they went to vote but they were not interested.  At one station, there was a photo of Serge Sargsyan on the ballot box.  There were lots of violations, but not as much as during the presidential election of 2008.

Bob Evans, IREX/Core Media Support Program, Director
At the close of yet another election day, it’s strange to be less-than-excited about courageous journalists again putting themselves in harms way to report on well orchestrated, and seeminglyoutrageous, elections violations. The energy and electricity generated by the government’s revving up for this and other elections seems to come at a terrible cost to the average citizen. While some resist and take to the streets every Friday the clamor of the powerful machine all but drowns out their calls for change. I can’t help but wonder if somehow we are actually bolstering the status quo by telling tales of elections abuse over and over again knowing that we will never be able to report that the perpetrators have paid a penalty or were even rebuked. Is our reporting actually demonstrating that these are in fact all powerful forces that operate with impunity?  It seems that the turbines of government are whining away generating street repairs, garbage collection, and, unfortunately, even more power as we watch another flawed election play out and wait for them to tell us who they have appointed  mayor.

Kregg Halstead, ABA ROLI, Director
The basic electoral framework upon which the Yerevan city council elections were organized and held cast their integrity into doubt.  Rather than having a direct election for Mayor of Yerevan with a run off if no candidate received 50% plus one, an amendment was made to the election law two months prior to the city council elections.  This amendment provided that any political party receiving 40% or more of the city council vote automatically receives a 10% “bonus” vote percentage to per se make the new mayor a representative of this party.  This framework dilutes the ability of the voters to make a direct choice on who becomes the new mayor.  Such choice had already been diminished by the indirect nature of the elections themselves.  This type of framework seems to indicate that the organizers had a specific result in mind for which they wanted to avoid, specifically, 60% or more of the voters and the political parties through which they are represented ultimately rallying around a compromise type mayoral candidate, who could unite various factions when the new city council members will elect the mayor. 

-With reporting by Ani Matevosyan/caucasusreports.com/IREX CMSPA

Election Day: Photo Essay – Violations at a Nor Nork precinct

Caucasusreports.com reporters Marianna Pepanyan and Anahit Danielyan Sophio Ebralidze saw this campaign poster for Prosperous Armenia illegally posted at Precinct 02/04.

Just outside, the candidate pictured on the poster, Artak Avetisyan, is standing at the same polling station greeting voters.

Again, Avetisyan is pictured speaking with voters, which is considered illegal campaigning on election day.

Inside, the precinct chairman, pictured right, is looking at a ballot just handed to him by a voter. The ballot is not sealed.

Here, the same precinct chairman (far right) and two other people are illegaly close to the voting booth while a voter is marking his ballot.

 -By Caucasusreports.com/IREX CMSPA newsfroom

May ’09: Photo Essay – Common Armenian Election Violations

During the May 2007 Parliamentary elections, IFES observers discovered this police officer inside a polling station in Artik. Police are prohibited by law from being inside a polling station on election day (they can be in a precinct building, but not the station itself).

In another Avan precinct during the presidential election, the little boy is wearing a scarf with the Republican Party’s “Ahead Armenia” slogan and Republican Party’s emblem on it. It’s illegal for any party to show campaign materials at the voting stations on election day.

During the vote-counting period at an Avan election commission during the February 2008 presidential election, IFES observers recorded this ballot paper with a vote for presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan marked invalid because of a hardly visible pen mark on it. Only in cases where it’s unclear what the voter’s preference was is it legal for a precinct commission to invalidate a vote.

Only 15 voters are allowed into a precinct at any one time, a law clearly violated in this Shirak polling station during the May 2007 parliamentary elections.

According to IFES election observers, neither the man in the tan jacket, nor the Avan precinct election commission chairwoman escorting him are legally allowed to be that close to individual voting booths. (The photo was taken in the Avan precinct during the Feb. 19, 2008 presidential elections). Other observers reported that the man had allegedly voted at the precinct more than once that day.

May ’09: Measuring up the Yerevan mayor nominees

Though Armenians won’t directly be electing a mayor on May 31, the party they choose will put forward a mayoral nominee. It’s as important to know about each political party’s chosen candidate for mayor, then, as it is to know the party’s general strategy and platforms.

This Month in Armenia’s reporters researched the seven candidates to offer you information about their political experience and their declared (and sometimes undeclared) finances and income. We also asked the candidates three questions about issues important to Armenian voters and posted their answers, edited only for space, not grammar or content. Check out our downloadable pdf charts below to get more information on:

Biography and financial information: Who  refused to provide their tax statements to reporters? How well do candidates official finances match with their rumored holdings? And more importantly, which candidates are being taken most seriously in the political arena?

Improving Garbage Collection: A key concern listed by our IREX/CSMPA pre-election survey respondents, find out what solutions candidates offer to this most pressing of urban problems.

Urban and Parks Development: In the past few years, both Yerevan’s elegant, Tamanyan-designed architecture and city parks and green areas have been disappearing. How do the candidate’s stand on these two issues?

Property Rights: With the spector of North Avenue hanging over their heads, many residents wonder whether the city will once again grab prime real estate and offer much less than adequate compensation. What assurances can these candidates offer that residents won’t be forced out of their homes?

May ’09: Don’t believe the myths – Your vote is secret

Just two months before Yerevan’s May 31 council elections, only 32.2 percent of Yerevan residents were completely confident their vote was secret, while another one fifth (20 percent) were convinced their voting choice could be revealed, according to a pre-election survey conducted by the IREX Core Media Support Program.

A significant number of Yerevan residents think city administrators can "see" how they voted, according to an IREX CMSPA pre-election survey conducted in April.

There may be many flaws in Armenia’s electoral system, but don’t fall pray to the myths cultivated by political figures to scare and manipulate people into voting for them. In reality, it’s impossible for anyone to see your decision in the voting booth – unless you take a bribe and agree to participate (see Myth Four).

Soldiers are the exception and are often illegally forced to vote openly in front of their commanders. But soldiers are not allowed to vote in the Yerevan election, so this scenario won’t be an issue at the end of May.

These myths are easily disproved, according to NGOs that monitor elections:

Myth One: The administration “uses its resources” to see how you voted.  The so-called use of administrative resources to physically record your vote (for example having cameras in the voting booth) can be an effective way to intimidate the gullible into voting for the ruling party. Even politicians who claim to be helpful can use their implied power to fan the flames of this rumor.

“I hope that the President of the republic will publicly announce his standpoint and state that the administrative lever cannot be the main electoral instrument, and at least in the case of the Yerevan mayoral elections our citizens will have a possibility to vote according to their will,” warned Artsvik Minasyan, the mayoral candidate for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun Party, which recently announced its split from the ruling coalition led by the Republican Party.

The myth is simply false. The voter is alone in the voting booth, ballots are sealed in envelopes, the ballots contain no identifying marks, and contrary to what certain politicians would have you believe, it’s nearly impossible, prohibitively expensive and impractical to install secret cameras in voting booths.

Yet the fear of an unknown enforcer monitoring you as you vote is still strong. The directors of state-funded agencies, municipalities and schools, commonly attempt to threaten or cajole their subordinates into voting for the ruling political party.

“Certainly, intimidation provides an atmosphere in which the potential voter is scared to lose whatever job he or she has. The teachers at schools or the voters working at state institutions usually concede to this demand,” said Aghasi Yesayan, a senior expert at IFES, an organization that deals with issues related to elections.

Thankfully, both IFES and It’s Your Choice, an election monitoring NGO, report that the impact of such threats and intimidation has been waning since the 2008 presidential elections.

Myth Two: Collecting passport data. The press is already flooded with news about the initiation of passport details collection in Yerevan. There have been reports of people going door to door collecting passport serial numbers, then asking residents to vote for a particular candidate in return for some payment.

There is no legal reason to give anyone your passport details at the door. Checking your voting list registration at this late date can only be done through the police or OVIR (see How to get on the voting list, page 6). Yet even if you gave your passport details, or took money, there is no way that individual precincts can confirm that you personally voted for a specific candidate. In fact the only way someone can use your personal information is if you fail to vote yourself. So the only way this tactic can work is if you don’t go to the polls.

“If the information has been collected and the person does not come to the polling station, the passport data of the person can be used to add ballot papers and to stuff the boxes,” said Yesayan.

Showing up at a rally (like the one pictured above in downtown Yerevan on May 1, 2009 in support of Levon Ter-Petrosyan) is a public way of displaying your preference. But in the voting booth, no one can see your ballot - unless you agree to show it to someone. PHOTO BY PHOTOLURE.

The IFES experts are unanimous in their assessment that the greater the number of the people participating in the elections, the fewer the possibilities of forging votes.

Currently, most Yerevan residents are not aware of this, according to the survey conducted by IREX at the beginning of April. The survey reports that half of the residents of the capital are not sure whether they will participate in the elections or not. The survey was conducted by face-to-face interviews with a statistically derived sample of residents throughout Yerevan’s 12 districts. (see Yerevan votes, page 2).

Only about 46 percent of those who responded reported that it is probable they will participate in the election, 32 percent think it is somewhat likely, while the remaining 22 percent either find it difficult to answer, or they felt it was very unlikely or improbable that they would vote in the elections.

“It should be borne in mind that only by participating can you ensure your own use of your own vote,” said Yesayan.

Myth Three: Controlling color pens.  The mechanism is simple: According to this scenario the person who paid for votes provides the people whose votes he bought with pens of a unique color, for example, green. The voters who accepted the money are then instructed to draw the tick on their ballot using the special pen.

People who sold their vote are told that during the ballot count the payees will check how many ballot papers were ticked using special pens. The bribes are often accompanied with threats that if the number of ballots paid for are not found to be checked with the special ink then serious reprisals will follow. Voters who accept payment are told that if they don’t vote as they agreed they will have to return the money, or be beaten. In some cases the threat is extended to include reprisals against their relatives.

Yet It’s Your Choice, which has recorded cases where this method of coercion was used during the previous two elections, says that confirming how people vote in Yerevan is impossible.

“Keep in mind that one is alone in the electoral booth and it is impossible to know who receives the vote and in what ink the vote was cast,” said Harutyun Hambardsumyan, the director of It‘s Your Choice.

“Clearly, the voter still has the ability to use the pen to vote for his or her preferred candidate, and it is impossible to determine who cast that vote. Or one may hide away the pen given to him or her and vote with the pen available in the booth,” said Yesayan.

Yerevan residents are expecting the upcoming city council elections to be more fair than the Feb '08 presidential elections, according to an IREX CMSPA pre-election survey.

Myth Four: Cell phone pictures as proof. During the 2007 parliamentary elections, the OSCE observers noted that some voters were encouraged to present cell phone pictures as proof of how they voted.

The voter takes a bribe, and then to get his money is required to take a photo of the ballot paper and to submit it as proof. However, according to the decree of the Central Electoral Commission it is prohibited to conduct any manipulation, for example, to take photos with a cell phone while in the booth.

Not only is this illegal. This is also something that can be more easily checked during summer election time, when people are less likely to be wearing a coat or other heavy clothes where they could hide the phone.

“It is easier to control this now, because the booths are more open and it is possible to see whether there are activities other than voting taking place in the booth, for example, whether cell phone photos are being taken or not,” said Yesayan.

The biggest protection against cell phone usage: you. No one is forcing you to take the money and bring them a photo of your vote. If you do, it’s no one’s fault but your own.

“You leave all the mechanisms outside the booth and stay there with your conscience” is the slogan IFES experts have adapted for this election. - By Sara Khojoyan/ArmeniaNow.com

SOME EXTRA VOTING-DAY TIPS

No stamp will be put in voters’ passports.  If you find a different signature before your name at the polling station, go to the Chairperson of the Commission or the proxies and complain. Know that it is a crime to sign for someone else.

May ’09: Is the new Yerevan election law really more democratic?

For the first time, Yerevan residents will vote at the end of May for a new local council, and indirectly, for the mayor in an attempt to comply with demands from the Council of Europe that Armenia become more democratic.

But do the introduced legislative amendments actually offer citizens a choice or, when all the votes are cast, is it just another way to maintain the status quo?  

Proponents of the new law contend it will lead to a better managed city with more efficient services, but critics charge the law will allow the ruling party to maintain more control over Armenia’s politically contentious capital city.

The elections on May 31, 2009 will mark the first time when the mayor of Yerevan will be determined by the local council election results, rather than appointed by the president of the country.

Under the previous constitution, Yerevan was divided into 12 districts, with each district electing a community head and local council, while the president appointed the mayor. Under the new system, residents will vote for a political party, whose winners will fill a 65-member council of Yerevan, and, depending upon the percentage of votes the parties receive, either the dominant party will designate a mayor or the entire council will elect a mayor. Community heads will become appointed figures serving the new local council.

Supporters of the law say that voting for a political party, rather than an individual, will allow the voter to make decisions based on long-term strategies.

“These elections should not be viewed as a fight among parties but rather a competition among different platforms and programs offered by political parties,” said Arayik Hovhanissyan, a national assembly member and president of the Armenian Council Association.

But others are worried that the new law contains some provisions that will allow one party too much power, particularly when it comes to selecting a mayor. According to the law, if a party gets more than 50 percent of the vote, that party automatically appoints its own mayoral candidate. But with four major parties vying for power, that’s not likely to happen during this election. If no party wins 40 percent of the vote, then the council will elect a mayor among all the parties represented on the council.

What has most election analysts ringing the alarm bell is a “bonus provision” which allows a party that gains 40 percent plus one vote to automatically get the additional ten percent, making them the majority winners able to promote their own candidate.

 “This provision in the election code is unconstitutional and unacceptable,” said Sos Ghimishyan, a co-author of the Law on Local Self Government of Armenia (a separate law that regulates the operation of local government bodies in Armenia, except for the city of Yerevan), a former member to the National Assembly and a local government expert in the Community Finance Officers Union.

“Article Four of the Constitution states that the elections in Armenia (including elections of local government bodies) are held based on the right to universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot, whereas the bonus system introduced in the election code undermines the notion of equality of the vote,” he continued.

Ghimishyan’s concern is shared by many local and international experts in electoral processes and democracy development.

“This is not in accordance with international standards or a best practice in elections because logically it means that votes achieved in elections by other parties are used to allocate seats to a different party, which can hardly be considered fair,” said Chedomir Flego, head of the IFES Armenia office, an international organization that monitors electoral systems.

Another problem with the law, according to Flego, is that it requires political parties to earn a minimum of seven percent of the total vote to allow them a percentage of council seats, while political blocks must earn at least nine percent of the vote.

“Anything above five percent is generally viewed as an attempt to discriminate against minor parties and guarantee that only a few large parties would share executive power,” he said.

The new law gives the Yerevan City Council more authority – it will now develop and manage the citywide budget, manage city resources, and impose citywide ordinances. The law’s supporters argue that this new unified city council, rather than 12 separate elected bodies, will be more efficient, streamlined, less costly and more likely to distribute services and resources equally across the city.

But some local government specialists counter that demoting the once-elected community heads to appointed positions could even further decrease accountability between politicians and their electorate.

“Our recommendation to the government was to establish two levels of local governance in Yerevan, leaving locally elected district heads and making the position of the Mayor of Yerevan elected, rather than appointed,” said Ghimishyan. “What we have now are dissolved local government units and appointed administrators who can care less about the needs of the local electorate.”

Flego advised Yerevan residents to adopt a “wait and see” policy,  to measure whether the trade off for less directly elected politicians will actually lead to a better run city, with better services.

“Citizens of Yerevan will have to wait until the next local elections to decide if the new Yerevan council has provided those improved services.  Otherwise they might demand to return to the system of elected local district heads,” said Flego.  – By Zara Chatinyan /This Month Staff Reporter

May ’09: Photos from the Yerevan Election Campaign Trail

In early April, only 15 percent of Yerevan residents were aware the city had adopted a new election code and administrative organization, according to an IREX/CMSPA survey. Spurred by requests from the European Union to create a more responsive democracy, the Yerevan mayor will now be determined by local council election results, rather than being appointed by the Armenian president. The first local council election operating under the new rules will be held on May 31.

Incumbent Yerevan Mayor Gagik Beglaryan meets with residents in Achapnyak, a big Yerevan neighborhood, on May 8. He is the ruling Republican Party’s mayoral nominee, and was the last mayor to be appointed by the president, in March.

Levon Ter-Petrosyan, speaking in front of the Manthanaderan Museum on May 1, created real opposition to the country’s ruling Republican Party during the February 2008 elections. Now, he is standing as his Armenian National Congress party’s mayoral candidate.

Artsvik Minasyan is shown planting a tree in the yard of St. Sargis Church in Yerevan’s 5th Nork Masive district on May 2. He is leading Armenian Revolutionary Party’s list in Yerevan Mayor Elections. The party recently broke with the ruling Republican government’s coalition, announcing itself as an opposition party.

Harutyun Kushkyan, mayoral candidate of Prosperous Armenia Party, is pictured speaking to the Kanaker-Zeytun community in early May. Prosperous Armenia is the second largest party, founded by Gagik Tsarukyan, a successful businessman in Armenia. They often side with the ruling Republican Party in parliament.

On May 11, Ophelia Margaryan (pictured here) was hit on the head with a stone when distributing flyers for the opposition’s Armenian National Congress’ upcoming meeting with the residents of Avan Community. Avan is a Republican Party stronghold: Taron Margaryan, the current community head, is the son of deceased Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan. Under the new election system, community heads like Margaryan will no longer be elected, but appointed.