Text of report by Armenian news agency Snark on 3rd June
Yerevan, 2nd June: Armenian President Robert Kocharyan today
received officials of the OSCE observers' mission, Nikolay
Vulchanov (Bulgaria) and Eugenio Polizzi (Italy), who monitored
the 30th May parliamentary elections.

Welcoming the work of the mission, the Armenian president
underlined its usefulness in implanting democratic traditions
in Armenia.

The OSCE observers described the 30th May parliamentary
elections in Armenia as serious progress and as a step forward
in approaching European criteria. Noting that the quality of
the elections has improved, the observers at the same time
expressed their concern about errors in the electoral rolls, as
well as on technical and organizational issues. The Armenian
president agreed that the election process and, in particular,
the electoral code needed improving. He said that all abuses
and negligence would be looked into and measures would be
implemented to correct them.

With reference to the electoral rolls, Robert Kocharyan
noted the failure to carry out a population census in Armenia
over the past 10 years, which had naturally led to the
appearance of these kinds of problems. At the same time, the
president underlined that under existing legislation, both
citizens and proxies had the opportunity to apply to the
relevant instances 35 days before the elections in order to
verify the electoral rolls.

The president said that all registered incidents would be
thoroughly investigated and if it emerged that leaders of
communes were in fact guilty, they would be severely punished.
Armenia will confront similar problems in the forthcoming
elections for local government councils this November if
decisive steps are not taken today, Kocharyan thinks.

Source: Snark news agency, Yerevan, in Russian 0500 gmt 03 Jun 99
BBC Mon TCU 030699 cal/vz