"Yerkir": Gathering passports is psychological pressure in Armenia.

“It seems you can give the photocopy of you passport to the [ruling coalition’s senior partner, the Republican Party of Armenia] RPA, and that’s that. They will think you will vote for them in the upcoming [parliamentary] elections, [and] they will leave you alone. But this is not the case,” Yerkir daily writes.

“Picking up the photocopy of the passport is just the beginning; then the [telephone] calls begin. Introducing themselves as being from the RPA [campaign] headquarters, they say they have information that you will vote for the RPA and ask you to confirm—to promise—that you truly will vote for them.

They say it is necessary to confirm or not to confirm, because they are making some ‘notes.’ Then they politely ask your permission to again ‘bother’ you.

‘Bothering’ with [telephone] calls until the elections is a form of psychological pressure. Everything starts with giving the passport, and many resort to this ‘safe’ step either from the fear of losing their job or out of fear, in general,” Yerkir writes.