Armenian political analyst rules out full consensus over electoral reforms
No perfect consensus over the draft election law could be reached, political scientist Vigen Hakobyan told Tert.am.
The opposition forces had no potential to exert pressure to have all of its proposals accepted.
No matter how perfect Armenia’s election law is, free and transparent elections are impossible without political will, which, in turn, can only be the result of domestic or external pressure.
“We can hardly say whether or not the election law was the result of consensus. It is a relative thing. Let us compare the proportion of political forces and the opposition forces’ proposals concerning the election law, fifty percent of which were accepted. I think the result should have been expected, and no one ever expected perfect consensus. The proportion of parliamentary forces suggested that no perfect consensus was possible. Otherwise, the opposition forces would have had all their proposals accepted by means of rallies and mass events,” Mr Hakobyan said.
Asked to comment on the PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) rapporteurs’ recent call for developing a political consensus over the issue, Hakobyan replied, “I don’t think it is for the international community to adopt or reject the Electoral Code. It is, first and foremost, a task for the Armenian political forces and civil society. Against the existing correlation of political forces, the authorities are not likely incur a major influence.
“The PACE expresses its desire for an absolute consensus, which both the authorities and the opposition want. But that isn’t possible under the current conditions. The authorities’ desire is to develop a code which will maximum facilitate their reproduction, whereas the opposition wishes to rule out a repeated voting process. That leads to a conflict of interests. Personally I do not think that the Electoral Code is the major issue. The problem is about the political will to conduct fair and transparent elections. The Electoral Code has nothing to do with this.
“The PACE’s interpretation cannot have a binding effect. But its desire was taken into consideration, with 50% of the opposition’s proposals being accepted.”
Asked whether he expects the 2017 parliamentary elections to set a good precedent in terms of ensuring fair elections, the analyst said he isn’t sure about such a scenario.
“It is for now difficult to say anything in that connection. To raise public confidence, the authorities should not limit themselves only to conducting elections. Perhaps it is important, but never enough. It is probably necessary to have a serious opposition team capable of exercising pressure to rule out willful election rigging by the authorities. We need a political will, which can develop also due to a powerful opposition. I do not see the internal pressure that would make the authorities demonstrate a political will. So external pressure, unfortunately, remains the only resource.”
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