Amendments to Electoral Code help modernize falsification methods: Armenian politician

Organizing free and fair elections in Armenia will be impossible unless the authorities are willing to change the situation, says Anahit Avoyan, member of the Armenian Democratic Union (ADU).

"Overall, the amendments to the Electoral Code have regressive tendencies in all aspects, and I don't think they will help record a progress in electoral processes," she told Wednesday a news conference devoted to the amendments to Amrnia's electoral legislation.

In the meantime, she disagreed to the view that every other election in Armenia differs from the previous one in negative terms.
"It's just a modernization of falsification methods," she said, stressing the importance of subjecting falsifiers to criminal liability.
Avoyan compared the recent amendments to the electoral legislation with the process of laying the foundations of a building, adding that the form actually didn't change the content.

For her part, Dustrik Mikaelyan, another ADU member, estimated the Electoral Code as the country's second most important legal act [after the Constitution] which establishes mechanisms for forming the country's government and hence determines its future.
Sharing Avoyan's opinion on establishing strict liability for falsifiers, she ruled out any possibility for granting pardon to such individuals.