Village Leader Confesses to Ballot Stuffing, Says Opposition Representative

Within the scope of the Armenian National Congress’ (HAK) meetings in rural communities and in the regions, HAK representative Vladmir Karapetyan and HHSh (Pan-Armenian National Movement) vice chair Samvel Abrahamyan paid a visit to the village of Verin Artashat on Nov. 20.

As told to Epress.am by Karapetyan himself, after speaking with the village residents for about half an hour, head of the village Ashot Ghazaryan approached them, accompanied by a group of about 20 people.

“Roughly interfering in our meeting, he tried to divert the attention of those gathered from the discussed topics, recalling the 1996 elections. Periodically interrupting the speakers, he spoke exclusively about the elections, noting the violations that transpired,” said Karapetyan.

According to him, the village leader publicly confessed that he, heading the electoral committee at the time, personally falsified election results — by ballot stuffing.

“HAK representatives reminded those gathered that the Movement’s struggle is against election falsifiers and criminals, promising that at the first convenient moment to look into the matter of assessing Ghazaryan’s self-confessed statements from a legal standpoint, regardless of which elections the crime was carried out in,” the opposition member concluded.