Epress.am News from Armenia
Principles of 84 schools and 30 kindergartens across Armenia have admitted to drawing up lists of their employees and students’ parents who pledged to vote for the ruling Republican Party in the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for April 2, according to a report published on Friday on SUT.am.
A SUT.am activist, the report said, decided to check the reliability of the ongoing rumors around the use of administrative resources ahead of the elections and, posing as senior member of a Republican campaign headquarters, phoned 136 headmasters of public schools and kindergartens in and outside Yerevan to make inquiries about the lists in question.
“84 school and 30 kindergarten principals of all regions of Armenia and Yerevan presented detailed data about their collected lists. Only 22 percent of principals denied collecting lists for Republicans (some of them by guessing that the telephone caller is not really a Republican).
“Typically, upon hearing the phrase ‘We’re from the Republican Party central headquarters,’ the principals were inclined to answer all our questions (as in how many people are in the list, who are those lists transferred to, which candidates were “warned” about). Moreover, the principals often presented other details. That’s how we found out that the lists are collected either personally or by the teachers and kindergarten nurses,” the report said.
On average, the number of people enrolled in schools is 240 and 150 in kindergartens, while the longest list compiled contains around 1,700 names and was drawn up by the headmaster of Gyumri’s secondary school No. 37. “About 75% of the principals handed the lists over to the regional and district administrations or municipalities, while 25% – directly to the Republican headquarters (campaign offices). One of the principals has submitted the list directly to Catherine Group owner and Republican candidate Mihran Poghosyan.”
Audio recordings of the conversations with the school principals
Audio recordings of the conversations with the kindergarten principals