Observer group reports 53 violations in Vagharshapat elections

An election-monitoring group has reported more than fifty violations during the Vagharshapat municipal council elections, with all formally submitted complaints allegedly linked to activities benefiting Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Daniel Ioannisyan of the Free Observer mission said that monitors documented 53 breaches during the campaign period, including on election day. According to him, 45 of the cases involved improper campaign posters, misuse of administrative resources and violations of the ban on charitable activities during the campaign.

Ioannisyan said that the group has filed five official reports with law-enforcement agencies, two concerning alleged abuse of office and three related to the combination of charitable acts with political campaigning.

“All five reports are, in one way or another, connected to alleged offences carried out in favor of the Civil Contract party,” Ioannisyan stated.

Turning to incidents observed on voting day, he said monitors witnessed numerous cases of open voting, including two instances that appeared deliberate “as if to show who they were voting for.” He added that ballot papers for both Civil Contract and the Victory bloc in some precincts were folded in distinctive ways that raised concerns about potential tracking of votes, a practice reminiscent of the past use of “colored pens” to identify ballots.

“There is a suspicion that some voters may have been instructed to fold their ballot paper in a particular way so it could be recognized,” Ioannisyan noted, adding that such actions cannot be formally verified in practice.

Arthur Sakunts, another representative of the monitoring mission, said that no significant irregularities had been recorded and that the elections were competitive in nature.

With ballots counted from all 47 polling stations, Civil Contract received 15,298, or 48.51%, of the votes. The runners-up were the Victory bloc with 10,051 votes, or 31.87%, while the remaining six parties received negligible votes.