Second Round of Armenia's Presidential Election Marred by Fraud

Election officials say President Robert Kocharian is the winner of Armenia's presidential run-off. Opposition candidate Stepan Demirchian, however, is not conceding defeat, as allegations of systematic fraud have again marred Armenia's electoral process.

Demirchian aides, along with international election monitors from the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), reported widespread instances of ballot-stuffing, bribery and other improper actions aimed at securing Kocharian's reelection in the March 5 vote.

The Central Election Commission (CEC), which came under heavy criticism for the way it conducted the first round of voting on February 19, reported that Kocharian received 67.5 percent of the vote in the second round to Demirchian's 32.5 percent. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Overall, 1.57 million Armenians cast votes, the CEC said March 6.

International observers said the voting process itself appeared to go relatively smoothly. It was a different story with the tabulation of ballots. "We want to pay tribute to the vast majority of Armenia's voters for their active and honest participation and to the many poll workers around the country who performed their duties conscientiously," Lord Russell-Johnston, head of the Council of Europe's PACE observer delegation, said in a March 6 statement. "For Armenia to advance democratically and to meet its commitments to the Council of Europe, we need the same attitude from the senior political leadership."

Meanwhile, Grigor Arutiunian, the campaign manager for Demirchian, alleged that roughly 400,000 votes were "falsified in favor of the incumbent president." He did not provide details. A published report in the newspaper Aykakan Shamanak claimed that up to 600,000 ballots had disappeared on March 4, the day before the run-off. A CEC official denied receiving any reports of stolen ballots, the Yerkir web site reported March 5. Arutiunian pledged that Demirchian's People's Party of Armenia would challenge the elections results in the country's Constitutional Court.

A spokesman for Kocharian, Vaagn Mkrtchian, derided the Demirchian camp's claim of massive ballot-stuffing, saying the opposition was spreading rumors about voting fraud in an attempt to mask its own electoral shortcomings. "You should be able to lose with dignity and not constantly whip up tension with reports of mass violations," the Arminfo news agency quoted Mkrtchian as saying March 6.

Mkrtchian demanded that Arutiunian produce evidence to support his claim that 400,000 votes were rigged for Kocharian. "This is not some frivolous thing we're talking about, it's the election of the head of state," Mkrtchian said.

International observers said they could confirm "numerous" cases of ballot-box stuffing. "I am disappointed; we had hoped for better," Peter Eicher, the head of the OSCE/ODIHR long-term observation mission, said in a statement. "Once again we witnessed significant problems on election day, and the period between the two rounds did not meet international standards for an open and fair political campaign."

The two-week period of campaigning between the first and second rounds of voting was marked by several controversies, in particular the arrest of roughly 200 Demirchian campaign aides. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In addition, the OSCE/ODIHR noted that state-controlled mass media outlets heavily favored Kocharian.

"Public TV was again biased in favor of the incumbent and failed to meet its obligation to provide balanced reporting," the international election observer mission statement said. "In a positive development, however, the first ever television debate between presidential candidates took place."