Armenian CEC is ready to hold organized and well-manageable elections. IFES Director of Armenian office
3 minute read
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 16, ARMENPRESS: 12 international organizations, including 632 observers, will implement observation mission during presidential elections in Armenia. One of monitoring organizations, accredited by Central Electoral Commission, is International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), director of which, Linda Edgeworth, spoke about pre-election process in the interview with Armenpress.
How would you evaluate the process of pre-election campaign, mainly the cooperation with Armenian Police and Central Electoral Commission concerning clarification of voters’ list?
-Cooperation between IFES and Armenian Police couldn’t be better. We helped them to implement “Door to Door” visits program. In general, we can say that we have established constructive relations with Armenian Police. Cooperation with CEC also couldn’t be better. Of course, there is always a need for the improvement; not all the issues concerning the registration of voters are solved so they are still some worries about that issue. We have already expressed our concern to CEC and Police and we are dividing the duties of excluding names of dead citizens from the list. We have visited Gyumri, Vanadzor and some addresses of Armenia, where more than 10 people were registered.
Have you watched the process of clarification of voter’s list?
Observing clarification works of the voters’ list is by duty. Enormous work have been carried out in order to remove the names of died citizens from the lists. Work has been done aimed at excluding not existing addresses. The whole information is published in the web site of Police and CEC. Now Armenian citizens can find their address in the internet and see how many people from their address can vote. It is much spoken about that after elections thanks to published data police may find out the names of those not living in their registered addresses or those living abroad. Before creating such a mechanism it is necessary to disseminate trust in the society. And it is important for every citizen to believe that police and government are doing everything in order to ensure trustful and good atmosphere during elections.
May we say that Armenia is ready to hold best election in its history?
In my opinion CEC is completely ready to hold successful elections. We have participating in the preparatory works of workers of polls and territorial electoral commissions. Comparing to previous elections, number of those wanting to undergo preparatory classes has increased. Thanks to live connection people can see their voting. Great transparency is ensured. There is visible progress.