ANC coordinator says vanishing ink was pre-arranged move

May 6, 2012 - 19:57 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Coordinator of the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) Levon Zurabyan commented on the situation with ink stamps vanishing from the voters’ passports.

According to their data, some representatives of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) were instructed to cast their ballots at 8:30 or 9:00 am, so that they could vote several times during the election day.

This is a pre-arranged mass forgery that aimed to ensure repeated voting. “This was done to enable the army to vote, so that they had a chance to vote again later,” Zurabyan added.

According to the opposition representative, proxies of Prosperous Armenia and ANC were assaulted in some polling stations, video cameras belonging to Prosperous Armenia were broken, some proxies were banned from the polling stations. There is information about mass bribery by RPA, he added.

As to police actions, they did nothing, Zurabyan stated.

Earlier chairman of the Central Electoral Committee (CEC) Tirgan Mukuchyan commented on reports about disappearing ink marks.

“The stamp should be shaken before putting the mark. The whole mechanism of using the stamp has been clarified now, and we have reports saying everything is ok now,” Mukuchyan said.

A few minutes after the voting started, voters and observers alarmed that the stamp put in a voter’s passport vanished in 17 minutes, leaving a thin line instead.