Transparency International warns of electoral abuses

A pre-election monitoring conducted by Transparency International has revealed abuses of voting rights through use of administrative resources.

In nine of the recorded 39 cases, local government officials used pressure against employees of educational institutions, urging them to take part in the pre-election campaign. In nine other cases, school employees faced coercion for heading to polls to elect a specific candidate, the organization’s executive director, Varuzhan Hoktanyan, told reporters on Wednesday.

The monitoring, conducted from 13 to 27 March, covered 24 educational institutions across Armenia.

Unequal competitive conditions, officials’ visits arranged simultaneously with the pre-election campaign and refusal to provide opposition parties with campaign headquarters were found to be the most commonly practiced forms of abuse, Hoktanyan added.

“Electoral bribe is another form of breach, which may amount to abuse of administrative resources in case budgetary resources are involved. To identify specific cases, we need serious and long-lasting analysis; this is why treat electoral bribes differently,” he said, adding that the vote buying practice is common also among the non-ruling political parties.