Notes from the Election Blogosphere

As mentioned on this blog before, there are apparently moves to reinstate absentee voting for citizens residing abroad in time for next year’s presidential election. During the recent parliamentary election this was reportedly a problem, and a source in a major international organization working in the area of elections recently told me that it might be reintroduced.

I’ve heard on the grapevine — well, actually from a very significant individual involved in the electoral process here — that attempts will be made to resolve the issue of absentee voting for the presidential election early next year. In the recent parliamentary election, the right to vote for Armenian citizens living or working abroad was actually taken away. Hetq Online covered this issue by publishing two letters from such voters deprived of their constitutional right to participate in the electoral process.

However, as also mentioned in the previous post on this particular issue, it is unclear what this might mean for non-resident ethnic Armenians living abroad and who might now take up citizenship given that the restriction on dual-nationality was removed in the 2005 referendum. Critics have long argued that allowing ethnic Armenians living abroad the right to vote in elections here is fraught with dangers.

Political scientist, Vardan Pogosian, the deputy chair of the National Democratic Party, proposes a flexible arrangement that sets residence in Armenia as the primary criterion for receiving citizenship.

“Let the Armenian diaspora receive dual citizenship, but with regard to political rights, those who do not permanently reside in Armenia should be differentiated from those who do. For those who do decide to live here and make Armenia their home, it would be simply immoral to deprive them of their right to vote and be elected,” he said.

Pogosian said that this would have to be tightly controlled, “A large number of Armenians live abroad. And if around 10 million foreign Armenians were to receive full Armenian citizenship, then this would mean that special restrictions would need to be imposed during government elections. Eligibility to vote on the competence of the government would apply only to residents of Armenia.”

This would probably not be such an issue had allowances for dual citizenship come in after the presidential election to be held early next year, but Observer now reports that dual citizenship will be granted from December — just months before the vote. One local blogger, Observer, has some valid concerns.

[…] I have to remember, that during the past elections there were claims by Nikol Pashinyan, one of the leaders of the Impeachment block, that the Government (meaning the Republican party), have issued thousands of brand new passports on the names of dead people and absentees, and have used mobile voting squads to vote using the stolen identities. No need to say, that dual citizenship creates exactly the same type of forgery possibilities.

The issue of dual citizenship, as well as that of absentee voting has been seen as a threat to the integrity of Armenian elections since 2005, when the draft of the new Constitution including such a provision, was being debated. The matter has been discussed at length in a number of earlier posts by Onnik Kriroryan in relation to 2007 Parliamentary Elections. And although I don’t think there will be a significant number of dual citizenships even if the process really starts on December 2007, the fact, that the plans are underway to set up the mechanism exactly two months before the election, and that the process is initiated by Serge Sargsyan, is somehow suspicious to me.

Given our past experience of elections in Armenia, and with the methods of falsifying the outcome becoming more sophisticated with each new vote, I also have to echo those concerns. Although no evidence has been provided to back up Pashinian’s claims of 400,000 new passports being printed ahead of the parliamentary election,the international community is aware that multiple voting did take place.

Hopefully, a lot of these concerns will be cleared up by the end of the year, but until then, Observer’s full post is here.