National Assembly deputy Shirak Torosyan, Chairman of the Javakhk Compatriotic Union, says that the pre-election phase of the Municipal Elections in Javakhk (May 30) has been carried out with prejudice against ethnic minorities, particularly for national-public figures of Akhalkalaki district, populated by 96 percent Armenians. (Javakhk is the historical name of Samtskhe-Javakhketi, region in south-western Georgia, where three regions out of 6 are mainly Armenian populated, with some 100,000 Armenians living there.)


Most of them, according to Torosyan, have not managed to be nominated for elections because of an amendment to Georgia’s electoral law, depriving public initiative groups of the right to participate in Municipal Elections.

Torosyan believes that Georgia’s Law on Political Unions banning the creation of parties with regional or territorial peculiarities, is a brazen violation of Armenians’ political-public rights.

Sevak Artsruni, Chairman of the Council of the Yerkir Patriotic Union, in his turn, says that the elections will be accompanied with mass falsifications in Georgia.

“In spite of emigration in Javakhk, 4,000 electorates have been added in Akhalkalaki’s five-year-old election lists. This means that the authorities are planning to stuff the ballot-boxes that much,” Artsruni says, adding that even Georgian candidates, facing serious pressure, refused to participate in the elections.

Artsruni says that representatives of the ruling party have already told foreign journalists that they would pass by 90 percent.