Election officials report a high voter turnout in a mayoral poll in Hrazdan where supporters of the two rival candidates have alleged a number of separate irregularities in the process.
According to the preliminary data reported by the Election Commission in District 25, 57 percent of Hrazdan’s nearly 44,000 eligible voters (25,395) cast their ballots in the Sunday vote – a fairly high voter activity for a local election, especially considering the cold weather conditions and icy roads in most parts of the town.
The turnout figures apparently reflect the keen competition in the town, some 50 kilometers to the north-east of capital Yerevan, where the incumbent mayor, Aram Danielyan, who has the ruling Republican Party of Armenia behind him, is being challenged by Sasun Mikayelyan, a charismatic Karabakh war veteran, former Hrazdan mayor and ex-lawmaker now affiliated with the main opposition Armenian National Congress.
ArmeniaNow’s reporter spent some time at polling station 25/15 where Mikayelyan’s proxy Myasnik Malkhasyan spoke about some irregularities during the vote, but acknowledged that at least until early afternoon the voting was proceeding calmly.
He, in particular, mentioned an incident in which some of the unused ballot papers had to be canceled after certain marks were noticed on them. In another case an election official “assisted” a voter in marking a ballot after the latter claimed to be experiencing some sight problems. That ballot was canceled, however, and the voter was allowed to vote again, this time marking the ballot paper and casting it by himself. Malkhasyan also repeated the earlier complaints connected with some of the ink pads and stamps that appeared to have been used before (but should be new, according to what the law says). The opposition candidate’s proxy was not satisfied with the replaced ink pads, either.
Hrach Husikyan, the head of the polling precinct commission in question, explained that the problem with some of the ink pads was connected with low air temperatures rather than their being used before. On the whole, he said, the voting in his station was proceeding well, without any extraordinary incidents.
Meanwhile, Kotayk governor Kovalenko Shahgeldyan, who has openly backed the incumbent mayor in the race, claimed that a man attempted to vote with someone else’s passport at polling station 25/19 and that this man was a Mikayelyan supporter. The head of the election commission in the mentioned precinct denied any such incident, as did the representative of Mikayelyan at the precinct.
The current local elections and, in particular, the mayoral vote in Hrazdan are viewed by many as a litmus test for the Armenian political leadership’s commitment to hold a clean vote in the parliamentary elections due in May.
While the process monitored by several observer groups and held amid close media attention in Hrazdan appears to be going well so far, some in the opposition and also among ordinary people in the street fear lest the fairness of the vote be jeopardized by the vote counting that is due to start after polling stations close at 8:00 pm.
The preliminary results in the vote are expected to become available on Monday morning.
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.jpg "Karabakh Issue: Can resolution by smallest state indicate changing Western attitude to Armenia?")
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