Epress.am News from Armenia
Speaking at a forum jointly organized by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun or ARF-D) and Heritage Party today aimed at realizing their plan to conduct the upcoming parliamentary elections using a 100% proportional system, Levon Zurabyan, who coordinates the Armenian National Congress’ (HAK) day-to-day affairs, welcomed the parties’ unprecedented unity to initiate this amendment in the Electoral Code.
“If you don’t take action, the will of the people again and again will be violated during the upcoming elections. It’s because of election fraud that an incident such as Mar. 1 [2008, when national police and military forces, called in to disperse the crowds protesting the presidential election, used “excessive force and violence” which left 10 people dead] became possible,” he said.
The senior HAK representative recalled that amendments to the Electoral Code always had HAK’s attention: in 2010, the opposition bloc presented a package of 7 proposed amendments to the Council of Europe.
“We will be holding a national rally on Feb. 17 dedicated to Electoral Code amendments. We’ve also planned for a rally on those days when this legislative package will be discussed in parliament,” he said.
Political analyst Andranik Tevanyan also voiced his support for the proposed legislative amendments at the forum. “Being against the proportional system, the ruling parties accept that they don’t have the votes. Their campaign is based on the statement that they’ll fight against oligarchs, but they don’t want to get rid of the majority system with which oligarchs get elected to parliament. I am against Egyptian developments happening in our country — moving to a 100% proportional system is the last chance for authorities to avoid such a prospect, ” Tevanyan said.