Results...
Well all the results appear to be in. First the easy one - Hayko got 8th place in Eurovision, and thus guarantees Armenia a place in the final next year. This is quite nice, but the difference between first place and 8th is huge, as 1st place means you get to host the next Eurovision in your country, which would be a massive boost to Armenia's tourism... though at the same time I don't know if it could handle so many visitors at once.
Next for the elections - I know a bunch of the observers, and, well, it seems things have improved... though they are still far from what I would consider acceptable. It seems the primary method of cheating this year was through buying votes. This was done on a massive scale by the governing Republican party and by Dodi Gago's "Prosperous Armenia" party. They came in first and second by a long shot. Only two other parties squeezed in enough votes to qualify for any seats in parliament on the party ticket - and those went to the former speaker or parliaments party, Orinats Yerkir, who was recently recorded having a very interesting conversation with the British Embassy, as well as former foreign minister Raffi Hovannisian's Heritage Party, which officially got 6% of the vote. So it is nice that he'll be in parliament and have parliamentary immunity as well.
The OSCE declared the elections something like pretty good. I don't know if there's an ulterior motive for that or not, but in any case the opposition is not impressed, and had a demonstration tonight already, promising another in 5 days time.
Next for the elections - I know a bunch of the observers, and, well, it seems things have improved... though they are still far from what I would consider acceptable. It seems the primary method of cheating this year was through buying votes. This was done on a massive scale by the governing Republican party and by Dodi Gago's "Prosperous Armenia" party. They came in first and second by a long shot. Only two other parties squeezed in enough votes to qualify for any seats in parliament on the party ticket - and those went to the former speaker or parliaments party, Orinats Yerkir, who was recently recorded having a very interesting conversation with the British Embassy, as well as former foreign minister Raffi Hovannisian's Heritage Party, which officially got 6% of the vote. So it is nice that he'll be in parliament and have parliamentary immunity as well.
The OSCE declared the elections something like pretty good. I don't know if there's an ulterior motive for that or not, but in any case the opposition is not impressed, and had a demonstration tonight already, promising another in 5 days time.
posted by Raffi K. at 6:06 PM
<< Home