A few days ago our partners Transparency International Anticorruption Center and Journalists’ Club ‘Asparez” disseminated a statement concerning the Citizen Observer Initiative. Considering its involvement in the monitoring of Yerevan Municipality Elections and the process of election-related disputes where our efforts were focused more on the protection of electoral rights of the Armenian citizens, including our observers, the Europe in Law Association has postponed the dissemination of our comments regarding this statement, which we present now. 

 

The Citizen Observer Initiative was created on the basis of the methodology of monitoring the electoral process developed and applied by the Europe in Law Association with a view to monitoring the 2013 Yerevan Municipality Elections, following which the Initiative monitored all major electoral processes taking place in Armenia.  

 

The initial participants of the Initiative were four non-governmental organizations: the Europe in Law Association, Transparency International Anticorruption Center, Helsinki Citizen Assembly of Vanadzor and Journalists’ Club ‘Asparez. However, these four were not the only participants of the Initiative. An important part in the launch and initial steps made by the COI was played by a group of repat Armenians that contributed human and financial resources and joined efforts with the four NGOs to prepare for and monitor the above elections. Hence, from the very start it was created as a platform, an effort to mobilize civil society in the area of election monitoring rather than merely a four-NGO coalition. 

 

The Citizen Observer Initiative is a platform with no proprietary rights on the part of organizations and individuals that invest resources and efforts in this platform. The Initiative is an open platform for all able and willing  parties. It does not belong to anyone and at the same time it belongs to everyone sharing the goals and vision of the Initiative.    It continues to remain open to any organization and individual that is ready to invest in efforts directed at the protection of the electoral rights of the Armenian citizens on the basis of the principles and methodology of the Initiative. 

 

At different times the Initiative has brought together different oranizations and individuals. For example, in 2015, 28 organizations participated in the Initiative. In the 2017 parliamentary elections the participants were 3 organizations.  In addition to these 3, a big group Diaspora Armenians, including public figures from the world of art participated in the Initiative transforming it into a truly pan-national exercise. 

 

Despite the fact that both the Europe in Law Association and Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center initially expressed willingness to monitor the 2017 Yerevan Municipality Election, the organization that eventually monitored these elections was the Europe in Law Association with modest resources. Our partners informed us that they would not participate in the monitoring of Yerevan Munitipality Elections following which the ELA continued its service to public interest and continued its monitoring efforts after 2017 parliamentary elections. 

 

Whilst monitoring the 2017 Yerevan Municipality Elections the ELA followed the principles and methodology of the Citizen Observer Initiative. As regards the use of the name and symbols of the Initiative, all statements of the ELA were stressed that “Europe in Law was conducting monitoring in the framework of the Citizen Observer Initiative”, which was enough for the public not not ger misled or disoriented. As regards the Initiative’s tools such as the website and social network profiles, their use was dictated by the need to increase the effectiveness of imparting information on the  observation mission to larger circles of the public. This was the reason why these tools were created in the first place. In addition to this, the ELA has invested significant human and financial resources in the creation and development of these tools with a view to improving the efforts directed at serving public interest. These tools were created not only for monitoring the 2017 parliamentary elections and our partners were well aware of this.

 

 The efforts of ELA’s observers contributed to the protection of electoral rights of Armenian citizens in more than 30 polling stations and 10 territorial electoral commissions, as a result of which significant violations were prevented and a considerable number of them reported /76 reports concerning 231 incident of violations/, including directed/controlled voting, violations of the secrecy of the vote, intimidation of observers, operation of fake observers, interference in the electoral process by police, incidents of vote-buying, etc. Had we not done that, the public would have been deprived of the possibility to have ‘public watchdogs’ in these polling stations. The organization is currently writing complaints on the basis of the detected facts of violations.  

 

The Europe in Law Association will continue it mission in the framework of the Citizen Observer Initiative, inviting all willing and ready organizations and individuals to join efforts in the area of serving the public interest. 

 

Europe in Law Association NGO

 

 

 

 

 

  -   Press release