Armenian electoral commission accuses courts of hampering municipal elections

Text of report by Armenian news agency Noyan Tapan on 6th October Yerevan, 5th October:

"The Central Electoral Commission [CEC] states that illegal decisions by courts of the first instance are preventing the CEC from organizing elections to local government bodies and overseeing legitimacy in the republic, and the courts of the first instance are responsible for the failure of the forthcoming elections," says a statement of the Armenian CEC, which was unanimously adopted on 5th October.

According to the statement, the CEC, guided by the Armenian Electoral Code and taking into consideration a relevant decision by the Armenian council of court chairmen, prohibited the regional electoral commissions from registering the candidacy of persons registered in a given region for less than a year. "In violation of Armenia's electoral code, the courts of first instance in almost all regions considered as illegal the decision by the relevant regional electoral commissions to turn down the registration of candidates," the commission says.

In the same sitting of the CEC discussed the application filed of six members of the Yerevan regional electoral commission to overturn a CEC decision allowing the registration of Ararat Khrimyan's candidature to the post of Erebuni community, since the latter has been registered in the community since 28th October 1998, whereas the period for registering candidacies expired on 4th October [ie he had resided in Erebuni for less than one year]. Five out of the 10 members attending the CEC sitting voted in favour of the application, nobody voted against or abstained and according to the voting results the decision was thus overturned.

Source: Noyan Tapan news agency, Yerevan, in Russian 0500 gmt 06 Oct 99

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