ACC rep defends release оf offensive recordings

PanARMENIAN.Net - During the Constitutional Court's hearing on the challenge to the June 7 election results, representatives of the Armenia Alliance questioned why the Anti-Corruption Committee had retained offensive language in the published recordings related to alleged vote-buying cases and whether this had been intended to target opposition political forces.

“Was it technically possible to remove from the recordings the sections containing insults and defamatory statements without losing the context necessary to present the alleged criminal offense to the public?” Hovhannes Khudoyan asked the deputy chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee, according to Factor.am .

In response, Armen Asatryan said that the committee had removed as much material as possible.

“Dear applicant, those recordings contain such insults directed at all citizens of Armenia that, if the Anti-Corruption Committee had pursued such an objective, many more interesting recordings could have been published. However, acting solely for legal and preventive purposes, it operated within the scope of its authority,” Asatryan said.

On June 14, the final results of the June 7 parliamentary elections were published. Civil Contract received 726,819 votes, or 49.7456%, Strong Armenia won 340,006 votes, or 23.2710%, and the Hayastan Alliance secured 144,983 votes, or 9.9231%. The Prosperous Armenia party failed to pass the 4% electoral threshold, receiving 58,287 votes, or 3.9893%, and will not enter parliament.

Civil Contract will hold 64 seats (including three allocated to national minority representatives), Strong Armenia will have 29 seats (including one Assyrian representative), and the Hayastan Alliance will hold 12 seats.