Gross violations revealed during referendum in Armenia
By Laman Sadigova
A number of violations have been fixed during the referendum on constitutional amendments envisaging transition from the presidential to parliamentary form of republic held in Armenia on December 6.
Falsification of the results of referendum drove thousands of protesters to streets demanding to cancel the vote.
As many as ten criminal cases were filed into various violations during the preparations and conduct of the referendum.
Although the opposition claims to existence of mass violations during the voting, the authorities assures they did not affect the final results.
The referendum on constitutional reform in Armenia was held on December 6. Draft amendments to the Basic Law provide for the country's transition to a parliamentary system of government.
More than 63 percent of participants of the referendum voted for adopting amendments to the Constitution, opposed by over 32 percent of voters, according to preliminary data.
In total, 446 applications were sent to the prosecutor's office, including 420 sent to investigation, 16 posts sent to the police and 10 criminal cases initiated.
The opponents of the current government in Armenia say that the authorities use “every known method to falsify the results of voting". They use administrative resources, involve criminals in the voting process, inflate voter lists, and exert pressure on election commission members and proxies.
Right after the referendum the official website of the observation mission of PACE published that "the relatively low turn-out, around 50 percent of the population, showed that the referendum was driven by political interests instead of the needs of the Armenian public and was perceived by many citizens as a vote of confidence in the government rather than on many proposals for change."
The Armenian Police received 268 signals about violations of the elections procedures during the voting.
Under the new constitution the parliament will be able to appoint and dismiss the prime minister. The president, who now shares his power with the prime minister, will be elected every seven years instead of five by the MPs and representatives of local authorities.
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