Epress.am News from Armenia
Though campaigning for the May 2012 parliamentary elections hasn’t officially kicked off yet, Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law, or OEK) for one week now has begun distributing its party pamphlets in Armenia’s second-largest city, Gyumri.
Residents of the city’s Ani district have been finding the booklets outside their doors, Gyumri resident Vahagn Khachatryan told Epress.am on Thursday.
“Those booklets can also be seen on the street, torn, thrown away. It’s remarkable that during this entire time we haven’t come across anyone [actually] distributing the booklets. They are distributing the booklets at night,” he surmised.
Note, according to the Article 18 of the Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia, “the election campaign shall start on the seventh day following the last day provided for by this Code for registration of candidates and electoral lists of political parties and shall finish one day before the voting day”; though at the same time, “the election campaign period being determined shall not limit campaigning in other periods not prohibited by this Code” (unofficial translation).
Furthermore, on the booklets it was written that 70,000 copies of the booklets were printed at Tigran Mets publishing house (in Yerevan).