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December 6, 2005 National Citizens’ Initiative Looks at Voting Abuse during Constitutional Referendum Yerevan—The National Citizens' Initiative (NCI) today convened a roundtable on “Mass Violations during the Constitutional Referendum.” The meeting brought together international organizations, human rights associations, legal defenders, representatives of state structures, heads of political and non-governmental associations, human rights advocates, analysts, experts, and media representatives.
Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) director of administration Karapet Kalenchian welcomed the audience with opening remarks. “The citizens of Armenia, in establishing democracy in the country, must place their hopes solely on themselves,” Kalenchian said. He also criticized the passive stance adopted by the United States, Europe, and Russia in terms of the widespread abuses that took place at the time of the Referendum, which was held in Armenia on November 27. Kalenchian also made public NCI's statement in connection with the activities that were carried out by the illegal authorities against those people who had participated in the peaceful rallies protesting the falsified Referendum.
In his intervention on “The Process of Constitutional Amendments and its Demise,” ACNIS director of research Stiopa Safarian spoke about how this process had come to be. He presented, in particular, the Public Information Center Final Report, in which it is stated that the Referendum on the constitutional amendments did not meet the international standards of democracy. During his talk concerning “How the Constitutional Referendum was Rigged,” Vahagn Khachatrian of the Public Oversight Commission on the Legality of the Referendum spoke of the role played by Armenia's armed forces in forging the passage of the Referendum and the casting of multiple ballots. He also brought forth evidence which proved that the central authorities, a couple of days prior to the Referendum, had distributed money to the village elders to organize festivities on November 27 and encourage the people to vote. In any case, the voter turnout was an unprecedented low, 15% in general, and 7-10 % in large towns.
The remainder of the session was devoted to exchanges of views and policy recommendations among the public figures and policy specialists in attendance. In his closing remarks, Karapet Kalenchian underlined that if the citizens do not fight for their rights and act in response to the unlawfulness by the incumbent authorities, than the latter will become more brazen and the abuses more widespread.
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