The office of Armenia’s Human Rights Defender has stated that based on the low number of complaints it received on May 5, press reports and the observations of local and international monitors, it can generally conclude that the Yerevan municipal elections were competitive and free.

The office said it received only 19 telephone calls of suspected violations as opposed to the 214 it received on the day of the February presidential election.

The HRD office labelled the overall election process as positive and noted the strong presence of the press in most polling precincts throughout the day.

It argued that the relatively low number of reports of suspected ballot stuffing, bribe distribution and other essential election violations could in no way account for the huge disparity in the vote counts received by the political forces in the race.

The office concluded by stating that it had found no legal evidence to question the legitimacy of the election results.