The registration of electoral infringements has started from the day prior to the elections. In particular, there are many cases of distributing electoral bribes, and a lot of them have been witnessed by Stepan Safaryan, an NA deputy, a member of Heritage party political council and coordinator of the control center. He noted there have been a particularly big number of electoral infringements in Yerevan.

Thus, in the election headquarters of Serzh Sargsyan located near the students’ dormitory in Zeytun, voters from the villages near Yerevan have been given registration certificates so that they could vote at one of the polling stations there. The mini buses N11 have been taken out of their itinerary so that they could bring groups of Serzh Sargsyan’s voters to vote. Some of the voters were inhabitants of Byureghavan.

There was information from the polling station 11/07 that there had been an incontrollable situation because there had been more than 50 people in the polling station. When the proxy of Levon Ter-Petrossian and a member of Heritage party demanded to establish order at that polling station, 8 members of the commission have expressed aggressive behavior, imposing pressure over these employees, substantiating that they were impeding the works of the commission.

Also, there have been cases of voting without passports. Stepan Safaryan emphasized that the voting was especially very tense in Erebuni and Malatia-Sebastia communities.

There are enough electoral infringements in the regions. In the polling stations of some Vanadzor districts there was a decision to conduct an open, controllable voting, and the ballot booths have been located, infringing the order defined by the law. Stepan Safaryan, referring to the statement disseminated by the pre-election headquarters of Serzh Sargsyan, informed that was done to provide high rates for the presidential candidate Serzh Sargsyan that would counterbalance the Yerevan indicators.

Stepan Safaryan states that a violation has been registered in Abovyan where Levon Ter-Petrossian’s proxy Larisa Tadevosyan has informed she had found data on 350 fake voters in the voting lists. There had been only names of voters in them. In response to he urge to take these people out of the voting lists, one of Gaguik Tsarukyan’s guards has warned her “not to interfere into the works of the commission.” This morning, at 07:30, during the commission session, 3 persons have entered the polling station, kidnapping Larisa Tadevosyan. The commission members, the chairman and the police have not interfered. Larisa Tadevosyan has been taken to an uninhabited location, battered and caused injuries. The commission chairman has informed about the incident only 3 hours later. The police officers of the polling station have commented on their behavior by explaining that they were not authorized to interfere without the commission mediation.

“We have been informed from Levon Ter-Petrossian’s headquarters that there are numerous non-existing buildings and fake voters in some station lists. It is about, the so-called “carousel” electoral infringement, the essence of which is just not controllable. People come and vote on behalf of others,” Stepan Safaryan said.

Stepan Safaryan informed that more than 500 people have already voted at numerous polling stations. He considers such activeness in some stations to be very suspicious. “In some polling stations, the participation rates are more than 12-13 percent – more than the expected average of 8-9 percent – which already causes concerns,” Safaryan added. Among the suspicious stations are NN 40, 17, 18, 11, 7.

The telephone of Heritage controlling center never stops ringing, and new violations and incidents are being registered at every moment.

Zaruhi Kocharyan