Seven international and 47 local organizations will carry out an observation mission at the May 6 parliamentary elections in Armenia. The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe’s (PACE), the Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the European Parliament, the CIS Observation Mission and the International Expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES) are among the international organizations.
Among the local organizations the Pan-Armenian Youth Association has the most observers – 5,555, followed by the ‘Choice is Yours’ NGO with 4,000 observers. The OSCE/ODIHR mission in Yerevan will consist of 13 international experts and 24 long-term observers, as well as 250 short-term observers, who will arrive in Armenia a few days before the E-day to observe the process of the elections and the votes counting procedure.
Even though opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) demanded from international organizations to secure participation of about 2,000 international observers – at least one observer in each polling station, none of the international organizations has met that demand, believing that they will manage to have an idea about the elections by limited number of observers, too.
Full Article: Vote 2012: Local and international observers get ready to monitor Armenia’s parliamentary election – Vote 2012 | ArmeniaNow.com.
