"Fact" daily writes:
The current authorities of Armenia, realizing that they have no chance of being re-elected in case of fair and free elections, are gradually using various "tools" to freely falsify the elections and distort their results. The initiative to make changes and additions to the Electoral Code is a clear proof of this.
The authorities have "nicely" packaged the changes that refer to the activities of the observation missions during the elections, for example stating that there is a goal to "ensure an independent, objective and impartial assessment of the electoral process to ensure the legitimacy and reliability of the elections", in fact, as independent experts and oppositionists note, the proposed bill is aimed at the authorities' desire to fully control the electoral process.
First of all, it should be noted that this change is made only 4 months before the elections, however, the accepted order is that there should be a "moratorium" on such changes at least 1 year before the elections. The next problem is that the changes are brought to the agenda hastily, secretly and are adopted "on foot", "in a hurry", without proper public discussions.
Moreover, since the opposition refused to participate in this "farce" vote, the Kpakans could hardly secure the necessary votes and "hold". On the other hand, judging by the speeches of both the main speaker and other Kpakans, these changes are primarily directed against "HayaVote", which, especially in the previous local government elections, spared no effort to prevent the illegalities of the authorities. And in general, with these changes, since there are extremely subjective formulations related to political neutrality, the CEC is given the opportunity to use any pretext not to register those observation missions, if they are not the "pocket" observers of the authorities.
Instead, they will register their "own" observers, which are really politicized (Daniel Ioannisyan's structure was cited as an example in the National Assembly), but most importantly, they are politicized in favor of the authorities. In other words, they will do everything to prevent truly independent, objective observers from participating in the upcoming elections.
By the way, in a conversation with us yesterday, several lawyers mentioned that these changes are also unconstitutional, as they violate the principle of certainty. Accordingly, it is not excluded that there will be an initiative to appeal to the CC.
Details in today's issue of "Past" daily.
