YEREVAN, DECEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. The government approved the draft on making changes in the Electoral Code, reports Armenpress.

The changes aim at preventing the cases of abuse of the administrative resource and forced voting.

Justice minister Davit Harutyunyan said despite that several negative incidents happened during the elections, these changes aim at preventing them. “Of course, our Electoral Code has some provisions relating to the abuse of the administrative resource, but we are making new proposals for some issues. In particular, the circle of persons in case of whom we put restrictions to participate in the election campaign is being expanded. If previosly we had public servicemen, now we touch upon the healthcare and medical organizations, educational and pre-school institutions”, the minister said.

He added that such restrictions are spread also on the employees of the public and community structures, as well as the companies where the state or the community have more than 20% participation.

Commenting on the incidents of forced participation in the election campaign, the minister said: “We consider this as a very serious case, and thus we criminalize it. Moreover, we also toughen the responsibility by some norms “, he said.

The justice minister asked the government to give 5 days since one provision of the Electoral Code has been declared as anti-Constitutional by the Constitutional Court, and there is a need to make the law in accordance with the Constitution.