UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW
An assessment by group of civil society organizations of government’s performance in implementation of
UPR recommendations
Shadow Interim Progress Report
(September 2010 – December 2012)
ANNEX II: IMPLEMENTATION OF OSCE/ODIHR RECOMMENDATIONS ON ELECTIONS 2012
AND 2013
Most of 75 recommendations proposed in both final reports can be grouped into 9 groups, based on which of the
9 conceptual components of the electoral policy they belong to. There are also few recommendations of general
and declarative character, for example, calling state authorities to address the manifest lack of public confidence
in the electoral process, introduce measures to ensure that votes are cast free of coercion or any form of
intimidation and not tolerate vote buying and vote selling. Such recommendations are from the final report on
2008 presidential elections and they reflect the concern of international organizations over the future of the
institute of elections in Armenia in the aftermath of March 1 events following those elections.
Conditionally, the 9 conceptual components of the electoral policy are:
• Characteristics and subjects of voting rights;
• Voter lists, their formation and management;
• Design and formation of electoral districts, precincts and polling stations;
• Publicity of elections, including media, and election campaign, including misuse of administrative resources;
• Campaign finance;
• Authorized persons (proxies), observers and journalists;
• System of electoral commissions, their formation and powers;
• Voting procedures, vote counting and tabulation;
• Resolution of election-related disputes, complaints, appeals and liability for electoral violations.
a) Characteristics and subjects of voting rights
The only recommendation made by international observers that relate to this component is aimed at granting
Armenian citizens with dual citizenship equal active and passive voting rights (see Recommendation 3 from the
2008 final report). The related changes in this aspect are minimal and do not seriously address the
Recommendation. By the new Electoral Code, now citizens with dual citizenship, who do not have Armenian
registration, can vote during national elections. (National elections, according to Article 2 of the Electoral Code
are presidential elections and proportional list vote at the parliamentary elections.) Like before, they do not have
passive voting rights regarding parliamentary or presidential elections, i.e. they cannot be elected as president or
members of Parliament.
b) Voter lists their formation and management, voter registration
There are only 3 recommendations related to this component in both monitoring reports (Recommendations 16
and 17 from the 2007 final report and Recommendation 7 from 2008 final report). Recommendation 7
(requiring police to announce periodically the number of persons registering to vote at their place of actual
residence) from 2008 final report is partially and Recommendation 16 is fully implemented in the new Electoral
Code. Recommendation 17 (on making publicly available gender-disaggregated data about the voter lists) has
not been implemented, but its implementation is not critical and would hardly enhance their transparency in any
serious way or improve the quality of voter lists.
c) Design and formation of electoral districts, precincts and polling stations
Recommendations 9 (separation of the Territorial Election Commission (TEC) premises form the central and
local authorities’ buildings), 10 (official clarification by CEC for the cases when the number of voter at the
given constituency exceeds 10% from the average number of voters per constituency) and 11 (reduction of the
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maximum number of registered voters per polling station) from the 2007 final report relate to this component.
Recommendation 9 and 11 are not implemented. Recommendation 10 has been partially implemented, as the
Electoral Code prohibits exceeding 10% for any constituency, but only inside a particular marz (region) or
Yerevan. This means that the number of voters in the constituencies of densely populated marzes and Yerevan
can exceed (and it actually occurs) the mentioned 10%, than the numbers of voters in constituencies of scarcely
populated marzes.
d) Publicity of elections, including media, and election campaign, including misuse of administrative resources
15 recommendations (Recommendations 2 (it also relates to Campaign finance component), 3 and from 20 to
32) from the 2007 final report and 10 (Recommendations 8 to 12 and 14 to 18) from the 2008 final report
address this component. Recommendations 2, 3, 20 (ensuring equal conditions for all election contestants and
clear separation of campaign activities from official and state activities) have been completely implemented, as
have 21 (applying proportional sanctions for campaign violations), 23, 24, 26, 27 from 2007 final report and
Recommendations 9, 10, 11, 12, 17 from 2008 final report. Recommendations 30-32 from the 2007 final report
and 15 and 16 from the 2008 final report are calling for an improvement in legislation on TV and radio,
specifically, the Law on TV and Radio, including the functioning of the National Council on TV and Radio
(NCTR). Overall, they were not implemented. Recommendation 22 from the 2007 final report (removal of
campaign materials inside the polling stations and their vicinity) though not directly provided for by the new
Electoral Code, is followed in practice and is based on the provision of the Code on the ban on campaigning on
the voting day and the day preceding the voting day (see Part 1 of Article 18). (This ban was in place also in the
previous Code.) Recommendation 25 (requiring public media to educate voters and give them comprehensive
information on electoral matters) from the same report also is not included in the new Code, however, in
practice, during 2012 parliamentary elections public media was involved in such activities. Recommendations
28 (providing minimum guaranteed access to media for majoritarian candidates) and 29 (providing free space
for parties and candidates in public print media) from the same report have not been implemented.
Recommendation 8 (introducing provisions to separate state structures from the ruling party) from 2008 final
report has been partially implemented. Though Part 2 of Article 21 of the Electoral Code prohibits state and
local self-government officials from creating unequal conditions between competing parties and candidates or
influencing on them, Part 5 of Article 5 prohibits use of premises of state and local self-government bodies as
campaign headquarters and Part 2 of Article 20 prohibits displaying campaign materials on any public property,
governors of marzes, ministers and other public servants participating in election campaign (but not as
candidates) are not required to take leave of absence from their office. Recommendation 17 (making NCTR the
sole body responsible to monitor the media’s general compliance with applicable legal provisions) has been
implemented (see Points 9-11 of Article 19 of the Electoral Code). Finally, Recommendation 18 (demanding
campaign slots to be broadcast after the main evening news) from the 2008 final report was not implemented,
and the practice of broadcasting these slots at a very inconvenient time, when people on the way back to home
from their working places (around 6pm) continued during 2012 parliamentary elections.
e) Campaign finance
Recommendations related to this component are Recommendation 2 from 2007 final report (it also includes
provisions related to campaign) and Recommendation 13 from 2008 final report. Recommendation calls for full
transparency and general accountability for campaign expenditures in a timely manner. On the one hand, the
relevant provisions of the new Electoral Code strengthened first of all the accountability for campaign
expenditures. For example, the new Electoral Code now makes deregistration of candidates or parties
mandatory, if their campaign expenditures exceed 10% of their pre-election funds (see Point 5 of Article 26), a
threshold defined by the Electoral Code Also the status and powers of the CEC Oversight-Audit Service (OAS)
are enhanced in the Code (see Article 28) to enable stricter control on campaign finance by that body. On the
other hand, as the 2012 elections revealed, such changes in the status and powers of OAS still remain
insufficient for making it an effective control body. However, the most serious setback in enhancing the
accountability and transparency of campaign expenditures was that the new Electoral Code explicitly defines,
which expenditure items should be included in the campaign accounts, i.e. made through the candidates’ and
parties’ pre-election funds (see Point 2 of Article 26). Interestingly, detailing the types of expenditures was one
of the requirements of Recommendation 13 from 2008 final report, and Armenian authorities interpreted this
provision by limiting the scope of expenditure items. At the same time, the same provision could be interpreted
as a requirement to avoid showing different types of expenditures as one expenditure item or defining vaguely
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the name of the item. As the TIAC monitoring of campaign finance at 2007 and 2008 elections revealed, such
practice was rather widespread among parties.
As a result, the parties and candidates can now hide many types of expenditures they make, which, though
indirectly do not affect the voter’s choice, is campaign expenditure by its nature. As the TIAC monitoring
revealed, the 2012 parliamentary elections gave ample evidence of such examples.
Besides the above mentioned requirement to detail types of expenditure in campaign accounts,
Recommendation 13 from 2008 final report contains some other requirements, as well. Formally, these
requirements are reflected in the new Electoral Code. Among them is the inclusion of “in kind” donations in
campaign spending accounts according to their fair market value (see Point 2 of Article 26). However, the
electronic form of the pre-election fund declaration is designed in such way that it becomes impossible finding
out, if there had been “in-kind” donations. Another provision of the Recommendation 13 regarding requiring
notifying CEC by candidates on the number, location and unit cost of campaign posters displayed on billboards
is implemented through Point 6 of Article 20 and Point 2 of Article 26 of the Electoral Code. The latter Point
together with Point 10 of Article 19 regulate the control of the number of paid advertisement in media, though
only electronic one.
f) Authorized persons (proxies), observers and journalists
Only two recommendations – one from each report – relate to this component. Recommendation 43 (prohibition
to register Armenian citizens as international observers and foreign citizens as domestic observers) from 2007
final report has been implemented in part. Point 2 of Article 29 of the Electoral Code prohibits Armenian
citizens to be registered as foreign observers. However, registration of foreign citizens as domestic observers is
still not prohibited. Recommendation 6 (developing training manual for proxies) from the 2008 final report
cannot be considered as a legal requirement. At the same time, CEC with support of USAID developed a
guidebook for proxies, which could be found on its website (see http://res.elections.am/images/doc/proxy.pdf).
g) System of electoral commissions, their formation and powers
Recommendations 8, 12 and 14 from the 2007 final report and Recommendations 4 and 5 from the 2008 final
report address issues relate to this component. Recommendations 8 and 4, which are identical in their content,
call for guaranteeing equitable representation in the management positions (Chair, Deputy Chair and Secretary)
on TECs and PECs for those parties and institutions eligible to nominate members to election commissions.
This recommendation has partially been implemented, only for PECs (see Article 42 of the Electoral Code). On
the part of TECs, the recommendation is now impossible to implement, because per the new Electoral Code,
the principle of party-based formation of TECs, as well as CEC, has been changed (see Articles 40 and 41 of the
Code), and is now “institution”- based, when the members of those commissions are proposed by independent
(by Constitution) institutions, such as the Office of Ombudsman, Court of Cassation and Chamber of Advocates
(Lawyers). More precisely, the mentioned institutions nominate members of CEC, and then the CEC nominates
members of TECs, who should not be affiliated to any party.
Though neither Electoral Code, nor CEC Procedures, adopted by CEC Decision N55-N from August 11, 2011,
include requirement for regular posting CEC meeting schedule on its web-site, for which Recommendation 12
calls for, this practice is in effect and a special page on the CEC web-site (http://www.elections.am/sessions/) is
devoted to this schedule.
Recommendation 14 (earlier in advance of Election Day formation of PECs) has been implemented (see Point 6
of Article 42 of the Code), though the timelines have not been substantially changed (the timelines for
nomination of PEC members changed from 23-26 to 25-30 days prior Election Day).
Article 45 of the Electoral Code explicitly states that the CEC makes administrative decisions. By this provision
the requirement of Recommendation 5 on clarification of CEC decisions has been implemented.
h) Voting procedures, vote counting and tabulation
The 2007 final report contains 11 (Recommendations 15, 33-42) and the 2008 final report 8 (Recommendations
20-27) recommendations related to this component. Article 73 of the new Electoral Code provides that
reasonable safeguards against incorrect data input shall be in place. This provision basically implements
Recommendation 15, except that the Recommendations imply that data input shall be conducted by PECs (the
Recommendation also demands that PEC members shall be trained on application of these safeguards), whereas
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the mentioned Article 73 provides that data input from PECs into computer shall be conducted by TECs, rather
than PECs.
Point 7 of Article 59 implements the provision of Recommendation 33 from the 2007 final report, which
demands that only a ballot paper bearing on the reverse side three signatures of responsible PEC members shall
be valid. The demand of the Recommendation 34 (the priority shall be the clarity of the voter’s intention, and
acceptable presentation of the “V” mark shall be acceptable) has been implemented through Clause 6 of Point 1
of Article 68. Among other recommendations from the 2007 final report implemented through the relevant
provisions of the Electoral Code are Recommendations 35 (proper placement of voting booths to ensure the
secrecy of ballot) and 36 (recording in the PEC journal the name of the person, who assisted the voter and
demanding that a person can assist only one voter). Recommendations 37-41 from 2007 final report are not
reflected in the Electoral Code. At the same time, the provisions from the Recommendations 37 (setting specific
time for the transfer from mobile ballot boxes) and 38 (regulating of telephone reporting from PEC to
responsible TEC or CEC during voting, counting and tabulation) can be found in the Guide for the members of
PECs (see http://res.elections.am/images/doc/PECmanualFinal.pdf). Regarding Recommendation 42 on voter
education, its implementation cannot necessarily be a legal obligation in the electoral legislation. The same is
true for the Recommendations 22 (clarification of the responsibility of police officers on duty at polling stations
and their training) 23 (ensuring in practice the right of soldiers to choose whether to vote or not) from 2008 final
report.
Among the recommendations from 2008 final report Recommendations 20 (instituting alternative mechanism to
prevent multiple voting), 24 (including in the PEC protocol the number of registered voters from the main list,
all additional lists and number of voters registered on the day of elections) and 26 (uniform procedures for all
TECs for entering results in the networked results system) are implemented through the introduction of relevant
provisions in the Electoral Code.
i) Resolution of election-related disputes, complaints, appeals and liability for electoral violations
Recommendations 4 to 7 from 2007 final report and Recommendations 28-31 from 2008 final report address the
issues related to this component. Recommendations 4 (criminalization of vote-buying), 5 (issuance of written
decision by electoral commissions on written complaints) and 7 (appealing a decision of the first instance court
in any election-related dispute) from the recommendations from 2007 final report are implemented.
Recommendation 6 (obliging TECs and CEC to refer all significant electoral violations to prosecutors or other
relevant authorities) is not implemented.
Recommendations 28 (clear demarcation of the respective jurisdiction of election commissions and courts and
establishing the right to appeal higher level of the election administration or judiciary) and 29 (obliging CEC to
establish clear factual findings on every complaint, stating steps and actions that have been undertaken to
investigate the complaint and stating the reasons for accepting or rejecting to investigate the complaint) from
2008 final report are implemented. However, as the media reported during May 2012 parliamentary elections
the CEC’s reasoning for accepting or rejecting complaints were too formalistic. This was also mentioned in the
OSCE/ODIHR EOM Final Report (see p. 18 at http://www.osce.org/odihr/91643).Recommendation 30
(obliging CEC to announce final election results until after the expiry of all appeal deadlines and the hearing of
all appeals by the competent court) have also been implemented. Regarding Recommendation 31 (specifying by
the Electoral Code, which are election offences are criminal and which – administrative and consistency
between the Criminal Code and Code of Administrative Violations), the new Electoral Code still does not
specify the nature of offences, which is not necessarily to be done. At the same time, much more consistency in
this regard now exists between the Criminal Code and Code of Administrative Violations. The only significant
ambiguity remains the case of vote-bribing in the aspect of promising money, goods, services It is punishable
both by Criminal Code (see Article 1542) and Code of Administrative Violations (see Article 4010).
The 2012 elections served as a good testing ground on how these, as well as well other changes, introduced in
the electoral legislation, were implemented in practice. For example, there were extremely rare cases of audioor videotaping the voting process on the Election Day. In no one precinct re-voting procedure was applied,
despite of numerous complaints from opposition parties on the violations in the precincts. The overly formalistic
approach of CEC and TECs in dealing with appeals and complaints, also mentioned by international observers
(see below), indirectly proves the fears of the critics of the change of the principle of CEC and TECs’ formation,
who were mentioning that the institutions, which nominate members of CEC, and then those nominate members
of TECs, are not really independent institutions, and, thus, these commissions could not be independent. Some
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other changes did not fulfill their purposes. For example, as the analysis of the declarations of pre-election funds
revealed, the ban on corporate donations aimed at reducing the huge inequalities in the sizes of these funds did
not eliminate these differences. The better regulation of the use of administrative resources or introduction of
more fair nomination of the management of PECs, proved to be rather inefficient in preventing “soft” electoral
violations, which were dominating over the “hard” ones of recent elections.
Concluding the discussion, it should be noted that the long process of improving electoral legislation starting
from 1995, unfortunately did not entail to really fair and competitive elections in Armenia. The adoption of the
new Electoral Code and the subsequent elections, being an integral part of this process, was not an exception
and people once more were disappointed and disillusioned with the electoral processes. As a result, they have
lost confidence in the ultimate goal of elections, namely, the manifestation of popular choice of the citizens on
which political force should take the responsibility of governing. This loss of confidence in its turn has created
an atmosphere of apathy, absence of interest in what the contestants are offering and has turned many citizens
into accomplices of corrupt practices and fraud taking place in the electoral processes. These phenomena, as
well as the inability of the opposition to offer the voters viable alternatives, has enabled the authorities and
ruling political forces to smoothly replace “hard” violations into “soft” ones (meaning the replacement of open
intimidation and harassment of voters, observers and proxies or ballot stuffing by effective vote buying,
“warnings” of loss of jobs in the case, if the ruling party will not get the necessary number of votes in particular
location and voluntary involvement of voters and members of electoral commissions in falsifications, such as,
for example, “cruising” the groups of falsifiers from one precinct to another for multiple voting), which will be
even more immune to any improvements of the electoral legislation.
The root cause of this situation is the absence of political will from the side of authorities and ruling political
forces, whose convergence with state is increasing in an alarming scale, which is manifested not only during the
period of elections, but also outside that period, when authorities are systematically and consistently limiting,
using different repressive methods, mainly of a financial nature, the capacities (mainly human and financial) of
opposition parties. The outcome is increasing the marginalization of oppositional political forces resulting in the
establishment of a model of dominant-party semi-authoritarian political system in Armenia.
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