EurasiaNet Civil Society - Armenia: Demands for Voter Passports Spark Election Controversy

CIVIL SOCIETY

ARMENIA: DEMANDS FOR VOTER PASSPORTS SPARK ELECTION CONTROVERSY
Gayane Abrahamyan 4/04/07

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 �Look, we take your passport or your passport data and we will later check whom you have voted for. We have given you a bribe, so you vote for our candidate,’" charged Grigor Harutyunian, a member of the political council of the People’s Party of Armenia, one of the main opposition parties in parliament. "’We will know if you don’t and it won’t be good for you,’" he claimed voters are told.

Ruzan Khachatrian, a board member of the People’s Party of Armenia, claims that the practice is not limited to targeting adults alone. "The passport data are shamelessly gathered even at schools," she claimed. "The school principals are mainly members of either Prosperous Armenia or the Republican Parties and force children to bring in their parents’ passports, promising high grades in return for them."

Both the Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia Party have strongly denied that they are involved in collecting passports or paying voters for the information.

In a March 15 meeting with journalists, Parliamentary Speaker Tigran Torosian, who holds the number two spot on the Republican Party’s list of candidates, affirmed that the party "has not instructed anyone to collect passports or [to take] any such kind of steps."

Torosian, however, stopped short of giving guarantees that election law violations would not occur during the campaign. "The RPA has several tens of thousands of members. Who can claim to be able to supervise the activities of these several tens of thousands of members? Nobody, I think," Torosian said.

On March 7, Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Vahan Hovhannisian, a member of the ruling council of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a member of Armenia’s ruling coalition, called on voters not to give out their passports and passport numbers, warning that the practice was a crime.

Meanwhile, economist Vardan Bostanjian, a member of Prosperous Armenia’s political council and a party list candidate, maintains that Prosperous Armenia has no need to use "artificial" means to win votes. "The party has 370,000 members and these people have joined it because of affection [for the party] and because of their beliefs," Bostanjian told reporters on March 22.

Passport grabs are not the only controversy to have marked the parliamentary campaign, however. Considerable debate has dogged the activities of a charitable organization connected with Prosperous Armenia leader Gagik Tsarukian. Wheat and potato seeds have been distributed to farmers for sowing, free medical care provided in the regions, and buses provided to transport university students into Yerevan free of charge. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The Republican Party and opposition People’s Party have also reportedly undertaken various charitable activities.

Armenia’s election code does not provide clear guidance on how to qualify such handouts. The code prohibits charitable acts by political parties only during the official election campaign period. The campaign for the May parliamentary vote starts on April 8 and lasts until May 10. The code does not specify how the restrictions apply to the pre-campaign period.

Nor is the problem a new one. Surveys performed by the Regional Development Center and Transparency International Yerevan indicated that 75 percent of voters during Armenia’s 2003 parliamentary vote had been offered financial incentives to favor a certain party or candidate.

Editor�s Note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for the ArmeniaNow online weekly.

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