The Heritage Party stated today that while it assesses the May 6 parliamentary election as substantially flawed, it will wait till it compares the numbers provided by the Central Electoral Commission with reports received from Heritage Party reps on local election committees before issuing its final assessment.

“The May 6 parliamentary elections in Armenia are stained with numerous violations,” reads the Heritage statement.

The party claims that the levels of voter bribes and “sham” charitable acts reached astounding proportions which, for the first time in the history of the republic, had an unprecedented impact on the election results.

“The utilization of administrative resources by the authorities created unequal campaign conditions for the political forces. In this context, we must also note the atmosphere of fear in certain communities and even regions that was fostered by local self-government heads and some regional governors,” the statement reads.

The party also says that it strongly suspects that police passport units “manipulated” the permanent and supplemental voter rolls in order to allow for double ballots to be cast.

The statement says that while the actual process of casting one’s ballot went off relatively smoothly and while access to TV coverage during the campaign was more or less on an equal footing, something that can be regarded as progress in the right direction, nevertheless, the violations taking place outside the polling stations have tarnished the legality and legitimacy of the election.