Armenian police reviews electoral process violations

Armenian police has considered or continues to consider 96 cases of violations during the electoral process, chief of staff of Armenian Police Vardan Yeghiazaryan said, Armenia Today reported.

He said that of these 96 cases 63 are related to election bribes, 16 are obstruction of the campaign and 12 cases of impeding people's right to vote.

Yeghiazaryan also added that spreading misinformation, falsification of election results and causing a disturbance a day before voting were amongst some of the violations.

"In 49 cases reports were received from the election staff of presidential candidate Raffi Hovannisian and a couple of cases were reported by representatives of Paruyr Hayrikian and Grant Bagratyan. Moreover, 43 reports were received from citizens."

Yeghiazaryan noted that despite the fact that some of the reports were anonymous the police took relevant measures in all cases. He added that accordingly material is being prepared on 56 cases.

"One case is being sent to the Special Investigation Service," Yeghiazaryan said.

Police received 36 reports on the 'hotline' Yeghiazaryan said, noting that no reports were received on the 'hotline' intended for international observers.

Presidential elections were held in Armenia on Feb.18. The incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan won the presidential elections scoring 58.64 per cent of the votes. First Foreign Minister of Armenia Raffi Hovannisian ranked second scoring 36.75 per cent, while former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratyan ranked third scoring 2.15 per cent.