YEREVAN. – This time there were fewer reports on election irregularities than the previous voting in Armenia, “Civil Society Institute” NGO Board Chairman Artak Kirakosyan said during a press conference on Thursday.    

He informed that their NGO visited numerous polling precincts, during Monday’s presidential election, and their observers reported sixty cases of irregularities.

“This election was held in a much calmer environment, there were much less pressures, [and] no incidents of open physical violence were recorded,” Kirakosyan added.    

In his words, however, there were milder forms of exerting pressure; specifically, some attempted to make arrangements with the representatives and observers of opposition Heritage Party, when it became apparent that presidential candidate, Heritage leader Raffi Hovannisian was ahead of fellow contender, ruling Republican Party leader, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan at several precincts, in terms of the number of votes received. But, according to the aforesaid NGO official, it seemed a directive was given from the higher echelons that nothing should be done in this respect and, subsequently, everything calmed down. 

“The greatest specifics of this election were that it seemed there were homogeneous [precinct] commissions, and the observers and the proxies were unable to oversee the [electoral] process,” he said.     

Artak Kirakosyan stressed that this time the problem was more of the political crisis rather than the electoral processes.