Epress.am News from Armenia
Elections for village leaders took place in 5 villages, and elections for city council in one village, in Armenia’s Aragatsotn marz (province) on May 22. The most heated battle took place in the village of Ohanavan, where there were three candidates: the current village head, Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) member Nshan Misakyan; former village head Amasik Miskayan (no party affiliation); and Aleksan Aleksanyan (also no party affiliation).
Speaking to Epress.am, head of the 14/01 district electoral committee Valter Hovakimyan said there are 1,806 eligible voters in Ohanavan. According to him, quite a large number of these voted and there were no suspicious incidents during voting.
There were small issues, however, such as certain inaccuracies in the candidates’ list, one of the trusted individuals had found an empty envelope in the voting booth, and some voters approached the voting booth in groups — but the committee president urged them to vote separately. However, Epress.am was informed that none of this hindered the regular elections process.
Preliminary results, publicized after the votes were counted, indicated that 1,452 residents had voted of which 228 voted for Amasik Misakyan, 566 for Nshan Misakyan and 619 to Aleksan Aleksanyan. During the voting process and the counting of the votes there were numerous police officers who didn’t allow any clearly partial or biased individuals to stay in the voting station or participate in the counting of the votes.
After leaving the polling station, the Epress.am journalist noticed that police officers had shut not only the door, but also the gates leading to the building where the votes were being counted as an additional precautionary measure to avoid the presence of any biased individuals in the area.