Officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have pressed the Armenian authorities to combat vote buying and abuse of state resources during fresh discussions on the conduct of Armenia’s last parliamentary elections held in April.
Representatives of the OSCE’s election-monitoring arm, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), visited Yerevan last week to formally present their final report on the elections won by the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).
The report released in July says the authorities largely respected “fundamental freedoms” during the “well-administered” vote. But it also cites “credible information about vote-buying, and pressure on civil servants and employees of private companies.”
The report also contains a set of policy recommendations. It says, among other things, that the authorities should “publicly discourage” vote buying or selling and ensure that Armenians are not forced to “vote in a particular way.”
In a weekend statement, the ODIHR said its representatives “explored” the report’s findings and recommendations at their meetings with government officials, lawmakers, leaders of major Armenian parties and civil society members. It said they also “proposed concrete steps that can be taken by various stakeholders to address the recommendations.”
“The ODIHR team drew attention to priority recommendations aimed at addressing persisting issues of vote-buying and abuse of state resources with a view to strengthening public confidence in the electoral process,” added the statement.
“ODIHR stands ready to offer its support in implementing the recommendations, including through a review of amendments to electoral legislation, advice on good practices and matters of technical implementation,” it quoted Alexander Shlyk, head of the ODIHR Elections Department, as saying.
Throughout the parliamentary race the HHK was accused by its political opponents and independent media of handing out vote bribes and pressurizing schoolteachers, civil servants and other public sector employees to vote for it. Armenian opposition parties say that those illegal practices were decisive in the HHK’s election victory.
The party headed by President Serzh Sarkisian denies having systematically resorted to them. It insists that the vote was largely democratic.
The European Union and the United States endorsed the findings of nearly 440 European election observers that were mostly deployed by the Warsaw-based ODIHR. At the same time they cautiously praised the authorities’ overall handling of the April 2 polls. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said through a spokesperson on April 4 that the official vote results “reflect the overall will of the Armenian people.”
The OSCE-led mission did not report significant instances of multiple voting, one of the most serious forms of fraud that marred previous Armenian elections. The authorities in Yerevan enacted last year a set of opposition-backed legal amendments designed to prevent such violations.
That led to the introduction of electronic voter authentication devices in all polling stations across the country. The authorities also installed web cameras to broadcast online voting and ballot counting in the vast majority of those stations. The EU allocated over $7 million for the purchase of that equipment.
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