Armenia: Demands for Voter Passports Spark Election Controversy

Reports of pro-government political parties allegedly seizing voter passports has become one of the most controversial issues surrounding the conduct of Armenia's May 12 parliamentary elections. While both the ruling Republican Party of Armenia and the influential Prosperous Armenia Party have denied any involvement, opposition parties charge that the practice could seriously affect the outcome of the vote.

Rosa Sanasarian, a 72-year-old resident of Yerevan's central Avan neighborhood, told EurasiaNet that she was forced to hand over her passport data to district officials to receive a two-month social welfare payment. The officials stated that they needed the information to register Sanasarian for the funds.

"People from the district administration told me to vote for the Republican Party, otherwise they threatened to take away my "paros" said Sanasarian, in reference to her bi-monthly allowance.

Not all voters, however, object to handing over their passports. In Charbakh, a suburb of Yerevan, Gurgen Mkrtumian, a 62-year-old construction worker, said that he handed over to Prosperous Armenia Party members the passports for all five of the voters in his family in exchange for 25,000 drams (about $70).

"The party that's been chosen to win will be elected no matter whether I vote or not," Mkrtumian explained. "I will at least get the money I need very much." Mkrtumian said that he intends to stand by his pledge to vote for Prosperous Armenia in return for the cash. "I have taken the money and I have given my word as a man," he said.

Members of Armenia's opposition claim that Prosperous Armenia, named the frontrunner in many opinion polls, and the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) are using the passport scoops to avoid detection of more overt forms of vote manipulation on election day by international observers, who are expected to scrutinize this vote more heavily than usual.

"People are told