Former head of Armenia’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Arpine Hovhannisyan, commenting on PACE’s election report, said she would not overstate the criticism it contains. She wrote this on her Telegram channel.
In her assessment, apart from several factual findings, the opposition has few substantial reasons to be satisfied with the report or use it against the authorities.
“Yes, a number of issues raised by the opposition are also recorded in the report. But if we single out the truly significant points, I would draw attention to the following.
1.The first is the issue of the Prosperous Armenia Party not being represented in parliament. Importantly, this is not about the election results having been falsified. The issue is presented in the context of whether the decisions taken were sufficiently reasoned and whether effective judicial protection was available.
2.Another point is the report’s concerns regarding selective justice, particularly in the context of arrests and detentions of clergy and predominantly opposition representatives.
“As for the rest, as a former member and head of Armenia’s PACE delegation, and based on my experience participating in monitoring debates and report-drafting processes concerning different countries, I can say that criticism regarding administrative resources, unequal conditions, shortcomings in election administration, transparency of campaign spending and similar issues is quite typical of such reports and is almost ‘mandatory’ accompanying criticism.
“Therefore, I would not overstate it. The rest consists entirely of assertions aligned with the authorities’ assessments, ranging from external pressure to vote-buying,” the former deputy speaker of the National Assembly wrote.
