Rustam Latifzoda: We have not observed gross violations of voter rights

Rustam Latifzoda Barot, Chairman of the Committee on Agrarian Affairs, Water and Land Resources of the Majlisi Namoyandagon of the Majlisi Oli of the Republic of Tajikistan and an observer of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, commented on the monitoring of the elections to the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia:
“We visited seven polling stations in the first half of the day, attended the opening of the polling station, where we arrived by 8 a.m.; the polling station opened on time.
Our visit to the polling stations was well organized and we had a positive impression of the work of the CEC of the Republic of Armenia. However, not all polling stations we observed had voter lists, and by far not all parties and political blocs had observers present. In addition, not all of them, especially the younger ones, were aware of their rights and responsibilities.
As for observing health and safety regulations at polling stations in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, all measures were taken. Voters wore masks, and if someone did not have one, they were available at the entrance.
In general, the elections were organized well enough, but when we asked the chairman of the election commission at 11 a.m. about the turnout, it was about 10 per cent.
However, election officials, those who had worked in elections before, said that they expected a turnout of at least 50% by the evening and a good level of voter participation by the closing time. This, of course, inspires optimism, and we are optimistic as well.
We did not observe any incidents involving either voters or parties, everything was going on openly enough, democratically. We did not observe any situations which could be regarded as violation of voters’ rights.
Although it is worth noting that there are still campaign posters of candidates and parties on the streets. The CEC said that it was impossible to remove all of them for technical reasons, and that no mechanism for removing all the posters at once had been developed. We think this is nonsense. On the day of silence and election day, there should be no election campaigning on the streets.
We hope that the new composition of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia will address the crisis situation.”
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