YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–The Armenian Revolutionary Federation found the draft election code submitted by a number of parliamentary factions acceptable. However–the ARF has some reservations regarding the formation of election committees proposed in the draft–the vice-representative of the ARF Executive Council of Armenia–Armen Rustamian–said in an interview with Noyan Tapan.
Under the draft–election committees are formed by two representatives of each parliamentary faction and one representative of each party whose members were elected to parliament by majority representation. Under this rule–the ARF will have only one representative to the committee–which–according to Rustamian–places the ARF at a disadvantage to other parties.
"We understand that the formation of election committees is confronted with difficulties for some objective reasons. The major reason is that free and fair elections haven’t been held in Armenia. The result of the previous elections don’t reflect the real influence of political parties in Armenia and their real alignment," Rustamian said.
Rustamian added that if the sides don’t make mutual concessions–a very undesirable situation may emerge.
In that case–the president can step in to find an appropriate solution to the problem–as the future of the elections depends on it. It should be mentioned that in the draft submitted by the factions preference is given to the proportional representation principle. The ARF also supports this draft–but the "Yerkrapah" deputy group gives preference to majority representation rather than proportional.
Pointing out that the Presidential Political Council has already started discussing the Election Code–Rustamian stressed that the discussions are being held in a working atmosphere–and the sides are willing to strike an agreement.