Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • GagruleLive
  • Armenia profile

Turkey’s Main opposition calls on top election board to annul the referendum

April 17, 2017 By administrator

Turkey’s main opposition party has vowed to take widespread irregularities during the April 16 referendum to the Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), repeating its accusations against the election watchdog and calling on the Supreme Election Board (YSK) to annul the referendum results.

“The only way to end ongoing discussions over the referendum’s legitimacy is to annul it. What is necessary is the annulment of this referendum,” a deputy leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Bülent Tezcan, told reporters at a press conference on April 17.

Tezcan said they were preparing their files to apply to the YSK, which agreed to accept unsealed ballot papers as valid halfway through voting day, for the annulment of the referendum, vowing that they would also apply to the Constitutional Court and the ECHR if necessary.

The deputy leader also presented video footage to the reporters, which he said was a proof of the widespread fraud. The footage showed election officials stamping ballots after the ballot boxes were opened and counting started.

“This referendum will take its place in the dark pages of history with its open voting but secret counting. The YSK did not and cannot stage a safe election,” Tezcan said. “This referendum will always be remembered as illegitimate.”

The CHP accused the YSK of deeming unsealed ballot papers as valid even though the Election Law forbids such a practice.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: annul, Main, opposition, Turkey's, Vote

Armenian Opposition Bloc Calls On Constitutional Court To Annul Election Results

April 14, 2017 By administrator

Armenian Opposition Bloc Calls

Armenian Opposition Bloc Calls

The opposition election bloc comprising former President Levon Ter-Petrossian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) and the People’s Party of Armenia (HZhK) headed by Stepan Demirchian announced on April 7 it will appeal to the Constitutional Court to annul the outcome of the April 2 parliamentary elections, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reported.

The bloc claimed that “large-scale and systematic violations of the electoral process,” including widespread vote-buying and the intimidation of voters by government loyalists, precluded the free expression of the people’s will.

According to the official preliminary election results, just four of the five political parties and four electoral blocs that participated will be represented in the new legislature, in which the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) retained its majority. The Congress-HZhK bloc was not one of them: it polled just 1.65 percent of the vote, far less than the 7 percent minimum required for electoral blocs to win representation.

The bloc’s allegations of malpractice, and specifically vote-buying, are partially corroborated by the preliminary assessment of the election by observers deployed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Parliament, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Their joint statement assessed the vote as “tainted by credible information about vote-buying, and pressure on civil servants and employees of private companies.”

Speaking at a press conference in Yerevan on April 3, Heidi Hautala, who headed the observers from the European Parliament, similarly expressed regret that the election “process was undermined by credible, recurring information of vote buying, intimidation of voters, notably civil servants in schools and hospitals and employees of private companies, as well as abuse of administrative positions.”

Allegations of vote-buying surfaced soon after the election campaign formally got under way on March 5. Just days later, senior HShK member Levon Zurabian described how a group of voters showed up at Congress headquarters in Yerevan on the mistaken assumption that it was a government office, and asked to sign up for the financial aid they had been promised in return for voting for the HHK, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reported.

Environment Minister Artsvik Minasian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun, the HHK’s junior coalition partner, similarly said “various candidates or individuals have promised money or services [to voters].”

Varuzhan Hoktanian, the head of Armenia’s leading anticorruption watchdog, which is affiliated with Transparency International, was more specific, telling RFE/RL that reports his NGO had received “lead us to conclude that vote bribes are mainly paid by the ruling party.”

He described vote-buying as “a really serious problem.”

Other Armenian media, too, reported suspected widespread vote-buying and decried as lacking credibility pledges by senior officials — such as police chief Vladimir Gasparian — to combat such abuses.

The HHK was, however, not the only party that sought to win over voters by offering material incentives.

Bargavach Hayastan, which is headed by wealthy businessman Gagik Tsarukian, also promised such benefits, for which the party received a formal reprimand in early March from the Central Election Commission.

The newspaper Hraparak described how “desperately poor” people “besieged” Tsarukian at his meetings with voters to beg for financial assistance. (The party placed second, with 31 parliament mandates.)

The initial assessment of the election by the international observer mission said that “some government officials indicated that vote-buying had become an entrenched part of political culture, stating that accepting money or other benefits in exchange for votes was often justified by extreme poverty and lack of economic opportunities.”

In the wake of the vote, HHK spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov implicitly admitted that vote-buying had taken place, while insisting that it did not have “a substantial impact” on the outcome of the ballot. That latter assertion is open to question, however. The opposition bloc Yelk (Way Out), which placed third with nine parliament mandates, claimed in an April 4 statement that “tens of thousands of citizens were involved in the chain of vote-bribe distribution and acceptance.”

The HHK polled enough votes to give it the 54 percent of parliament mandates that constitutes a stable majority (58 of 105) and thus obviates the need to form a new coalition. In 2012 and 2007, the HHK garnered 69 and 64, respectively, of the 131 parliament mandates.

Even if the HHK victory was not the direct result of malpractice, this election represented a shift in the prevalent pattern of procedural violations that had led international observer missions to characterize the parliamentary ballots in 1999 and 2003 as falling short of Armenia’s OSCE commitments and of other standards for democratic elections.

In previous ballots, the most frequent and egregious violations registered by international observers took place during the actual vote (multiple, proxy, or absentee voting) or the vote count and tabulation. In 2012, for example, there were major glitches in the use of the ink used to mark voters’ fingers in an attempt to preclude multiple voting, which faded shortly after application. And observers assessed the vote count as “bad” or “very bad” in almost 20 percent of the polling stations where they were present (24 of 125.) The corresponding figure in 2007 had been 17 percent.

Two factors may have contributed to the change in the incidence of various forms of fraud. The first is the disastrous economic situation (a World Bank report released late last year assessed the number of Armenians living below of the poverty line of $2.5 per day at almost one in four) and the eclipse of ideology as a factor motivating voters. A commentary posted on JAMnet opined that “there is an ongoing process in Armenia, where forces lacking ideology are winning over ideological ones…. People tend to vote not for words, but rather for a road to be built in a village, for doors or windows to be installed in a house, for a salary; they tend to vote depending on the affiliation of their employer to this or that party, depending on where they live.”

In other words, given only minor differences in the programs of the various parties seeking election, economic necessity may have been deciding factor determining which party people voted for.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: annul, Armenian, bloc, Election, opposition

Support Gagrule.net

Subscribe Free News & Update

Search

GagruleLive with Harut Sassounian

Can activist run a Government?

Wally Sarkeesian Interview Onnik Dinkjian and son

https://youtu.be/BiI8_TJzHEM

Khachic Moradian

https://youtu.be/-NkIYpCAIII
https://youtu.be/9_Xi7FA3tGQ
https://youtu.be/Arg8gAhcIb0
https://youtu.be/zzh-WpjGltY





gagrulenet Twitter-Timeline

Tweets by @gagrulenet

Archives

Books

Recent Posts

  • “Nikol Pashinyan Joins the Ranks of 7 World Leaders Accused of Betrayal, Surrender, and Controversial Concessions”
  • The Myth of Authenticity: Why We’re All Just Playing a Role
  • From Revolution to Repression Pashinyan Has Reduced Armenians to ‘Toothless, Barking Dogs’
  • Armenia: Letter from the leader of the Sacred Struggle, political prisoner Bagrat Archbishop Galstanyan
  • U.S. Judge Dismisses $500 Million Lawsuit By Azeri Lawyer Against ANCA & 29 Others

Recent Comments

  • administrator on Turkish Agent Pashinyan will not attend the meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State
  • David on Turkish Agent Pashinyan will not attend the meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State
  • Ara Arakelian on A democratic nation has been allowed to die – the UN has failed once more “Nagorno-Karabakh”
  • DV on A democratic nation has been allowed to die – the UN has failed once more “Nagorno-Karabakh”
  • Tavo on I’d call on the people of Syunik to arm themselves, and defend your country – Vazgen Manukyan

Copyright © 2025 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in