Tigran Mukuchyan, the head of the Central Election Commission (CEC), described the May 6 parliamentary elections in Armenia as “essential progress” as he gave a press conference in Yerevan on Wednesday. In the view of the head of the body administering the process, the elections giving the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) a landslide victory amounted to the “most transparent, public and controlled” elections in Armenia ever. Mukuchyan’s comments were in harmony with what the political leadership in Armenia has said before and after the elections. President Serzh Sargsyan and other senior members of the government had pledged to hold the best elections in the history of independent Armenia – a circumstance also attached a great deal of importance to by Armenia’s international partners, notably the European Union and the United States.
An RPA spokesman has already described the Sunday vote as Armenia’s “best in the 21st century.” Other senior figures of the party also praised the process as a considerable step forward.
Opposition groups, meanwhile, have been mostly unhappy with the conduct of the elections, saying that the large-scale use of administrative resources, electoral roll fraud and vote buying schemes in favor of the establishment parties had significantly distorted their final outcome that gave two opposition parties and one bloc only a marginal representation in the next National Assembly.
Full Article: Vote 2012: Top election official calls Sunday polls “essential progress” – Vote 2012 | ArmeniaNow.com.
