Vote buying and widely-spread electoral corruption cloud the entire picture of parliamentary election of Armenia, these phenomena tainting the image of Armenia and development of democratic processes in the country, head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Piotr Świtalski, said at the meeting with journalists in Gyumri Tuesday.

The Ambassador remains optimistic despite the fact that Armenia has an issue. According to him, he spends all his time on the analysis of what practical measures can be taken to prevent these acts of political corruption in the future. In his words, the Armenian politicians should start serious discussions on what legal and administrative measures can be taken to prevent vote buying and abuse of administrative resources, he said.

Noting that the EU observers have already given their assessment to the election, Świtalski thanked the Armenian partners for introducing the project funded by the EU. In his words, EU is satisfied with the way their funds were used during the election. Thanks to the introduced innovations, the Armenian voters can be confident that their votes cannot be stolen, he added.

Furthermore, the Ambassador mentioned that although there were certain issues with technology and not everything worked properly, this project had never been introduced in such a short period of time. Meanwhile, in Armenia it worked even better than the EU could expect, and even better than in other countries, where it had been introduced.

Świtalski added that reports were received on cases of vote buying, as well as pressure on and abuse of administrative resources. Nevertheless, he expressed hope that all these issues will be dealt with in the future, and the election in Armenia will be very transparent and clean in the future. In the words of the head of the EU Delegation, they are currently analyzing all the existing data and will later present their final conclusions.

The Ambassador stressed that democracy is a process, a constant movement and that an important step was made on April 2. This process will thus be continuous: it is irreversible, he noted.

Świtalski also highlighted the activeness of the Armenian youth during the election, thanking the civil society, which conducted a monitoring mission.

Parliamentary election was held in Armenia on April 2. EU provided technical support to Armenia in organizing the election.