Your 'Outside Eye' regarding the elections seemed
a bit too lop-sided to me . . .
There are a few points I would like you to clarify:
You start by saying the president had boasted
for four months that he would win the election
without a runoff. This may be true. Isn't it also
true that all of the opposition papers were saying
the same thing, as well, assuming that it was
a foregone conclusion?
Your tone suggests mass riggings during last
week's election, yet the ODHIR report, the official
observers, only mentions of five cases of ballot
stuffing. . .
. . .You say "Stepan Demirchyan got enough
votes Wednesday to force a runoff" but that
actually had nothing to do with the runoff, as
it was Kocharyan not getting 50% plus one vote
which determined the runoff. No?
. . . How about the reports of looting of Kocharyan
campaign offices in the last few days? How about
all those who have Kocharyan posters in their
shops being beaten up and harassed? Is that done
by the Kocharyan camp as well?
You also mentioned that a "Foreign Ministry-supported
website proclaimed a calm and clean election."
I have checked both ArmeniaForeignMinistry.com
and ArmeniaDiaspora.com, the only two I know of,
and have not seen such a report.
I would expect more concrete and unbiased information
from the site that proclaims to present "Independent
Journalism from Today's Armenia." Wouldn't
you?
Armen Yeteryan
Yerevan, Armenia
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