Statement of the Steering Committee on the Presidential Elections in Armenia

Concerning the recent presidential elections in Armenia on 18 February 2013, the Steering Committee regrets that the Armenian authorities failed to seize the opportunity to consolidate public support, which will be essential to politically underpin the challenging reforms awaiting the country once it signs the Association Agreement with the EU. According to post-elections reports produces by members of the Armenian National Platform, which conducted an election observation mission, the election "cannot be considered as fair both in terms of accuracy of procedures and perceptions of Armenian citizens vis-a-vis the official results" and therefore failed to provide the leadership of the country with a sufficient level of legitimacy. According to their assessment there was “direct and indirect evidence that ballot papers were added” in order to boost the result of the incumbent President.

The CSF underlines that "free and fair elections are the bedrock of a functioning democracy" and it will therefore mount its own monitoring efforts during forthcoming elections in Azerbaijan and Georgia, as the example of Armenia has shown, that monitoring is essential if fraud is to be limited.

The full statement of the EaP CSF Steering Committee is available here.

A comprehensive report on the presidential elections and the municipal elections in Yerevan on 5 May is currently being prepared by the Armenian National Platform and will be published soon.