The present of “Heritage” to Serzh Sargsyan

Yesterday the MPs of the Heritage faction have started to circulate their draft law on amending the Electoral Code of Armenia.

The draft anticipates that the Armenian citizens who are outside Armenia are granted the right to vote as well. Before circulating the draft the head of the Heritage parliamentary faction Ruben Hakobyan has sent a written request to the Ombudsman of Armenia to discuss in court to what extent Article 60 of the Election Code matches the requirements of the RA Constitution. The thing is that Article 60 of the code deprives the Armenian citizens residing outside Armenia to practice their constitutionally granted right.

The article contradicts the provision of the Constitution, which stipulates that all the Armenian citizens at the age 18 and above must have suffrage. Thus, on the one hand the Heritage is trying to argue this contradiction in the Constitutional Court and on the other hand attempt to revise the Election Code to enable the Armenian citizens from abroad to vote. Heritage’s initiative is commendable – the parliamentary party is trying to eliminate the anti-constitutional provision in the code and create an opportunity for our compatriots to vote. However, in the Armenian reality, especially after considering the recent parliamentary elections, this initiative is mildly said disputable.

The question is how the government will use the ballots of our citizens voting from abroad. The May 6 parliamentary elections showed that the government has approached the vote rigging to almost a perfect level – starting from fading inks in passports ending with double voting and other violations. The opposition, including the Heritage, were not able to practically preclude these actions even in the case of having commission members and proxies in precincts. Based on the recent stats of migration we have claim there are hundreds of thousand Armenians living abroad.

The opposition, including the Heritage, express their concerns about this fact. If the legislative initiative of the latter is adopted and the Armenian citizens living abroad acquire the right to vote then they will have to vote in embassies, consulates or electronically and afterwards these results should be sent to the CEC. And it’s known the embassies and CEC are not controlled by Stepan Safaryan but by the government. This means that by the suggestion of the Heritage the government will have the chance to control the votes of about a million voters from abroad. Theoretically, of course, the opposition may also acquire certain mechanisms of control but it’s not hard to imagine what will happen in practice. And regardless of the methods of voting it will be possible to rig the ballots.

First, they have to register in Embassies or Consulates, which means that in any case the registration process will be carried out by the state, i.e. the government. Even in case of electronic vote the results of the vote will be processed by the Central Electoral Committee. This means that the same government, if necessary, will be able to control additional several hundred thousand votes.

The reason for this initiative is the fact that most of the recent emigrants that left the country usually vote against this government. People remember when in 2003 opposition candidate Stepan Demirchyan received over 90% of votes in Los Angeles, after which Robert Kocharyan initiated reform of the electoral law enabling citizens in other countries to vote. However, this explanation is weak with the reasons above only.

In 2003 elections were violated with brute methods, but now those violations are much improved. The government fully controls the instruments of manipulating with the votes, and in other countries it will be easier as they have better and direct access to that information. In that case the moods and decisions of voters do not really matter. Otherwise, the Heritage and other opposition powers have the confess that the results of May 6 elections really reflect the decision of voters, which apparently is not true.

Definitely both the Heritage and other opposition powers would criticize if the initiative for enabling citizens in other countries was proposed by the government. In this situation, however, everything is more natural. If the government adopts this initiative, on the one hand it will be a constructive decision toward the opposition, and on the other hand they will receive an opportunity to manipulate several thousand more votes without any efforts.