Civil Contract plans legislative changes to crack down on electoral bribery

The ruling Civil Contract party intends to submit legislation that would significantly increase criminal penalties for electoral bribery.

Civil Contract MP Vahagn Aleksanyan told reporters that the current legislation is not sufficiently clear and that vote-buying "scoundrels" are able to "maneuver" around it.

"We are currently at the stage of initiating very important legislative amendments, and those discussions are now underway so that everything will be much clearer in the future regarding vote-buying. At the very least, based on what I have understood from consultations with our lawyers, our legislation at this moment is not sufficiently clear, and the scoundrels who hand out election bribes are able to maneuver around it. We are planning tougher penalties for the distribution of election bribes, and we intend to cleanse the political arena of the scoundrels who engage in vote-buying," Aleksanyan said.

Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan, a senior member of the Civil Contract party, had earlier also announced a legislative initiative aimed at increasing criminal penalties for electoral bribery.