How Much Does NKR Electoral Code Go Along with European Standards?

• 05.01.2015, 23:05
•  NKR

On May 3 the sixth parliamentary elections, since the ceasefire has been signed, are planned. As the government officials of Artsakh inform, the election will be observed by tens of international observers in spite of the Azerbaijani efforts to prevent their visit to NKR. Number of international reports from international human rights organizations proves that NKR is ahead of Azerbaijan by the level of protection of democratic principles. However, Azerbaijan is not a good case to be compared for measuring the level of development of protection of human rights and democracy in the two Armenian states.  Thus in order to find out how much the NKR Electoral Code corresponds to the European standards by their level of freedom, the electoral norms in Artsakh will be compared to the electoral law of any other European country, taking the example of Poland.

The Constitution of the NKR ensures that "The election of the President, the National Assembly and local self-governing bodies as well as the referenda is held based on the rights to universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot."

1997 Polish Electoral Law in addition to these principles speaks about the principle of election freedom.  Before it, the Polish Constitution and Electoral Code did not name the principle of election freedom, though indirectly it was suggested.

According to the NKR Constitution citizens who are eighteen years old have the right to be elected and participate in the referenda. The Polish Constitution defines the same right. The previous Constitution gave the right to be elected as members of Sejm and Senate to the ones who do not have the citizenship but have been permanent residents  in the country for at least five years; the point that was removed from the Constitution as a result of 1997 change.

The residents with no citizenship can participate in the elections of local self-governing bodies in the place, where they have permanent residency. According to the NKR Electoral Code residents, with have no citizenship can also participate in the elections of local self-governing bodies, if they have resided in that place for 12 months.

NKR legislation gives its citizens an opportunity to exercise their right of vote it they are out of country on the day of elections. The 59 Article of Electoral Code particularly states:

"Citizens of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic who have the right to vote, that live or are in the foreign countries, can participate in the national elections, at the diplomatic and consular representations of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Seven  days prior to the day of voting, the Central Electoral Commission shall forward through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the diplomatic and consular representations of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, data on the registered candidates for the President of the Republic and electoral lists of the parties registered for the National Assembly proportional elections, the specimens of ballots, electoral and other documents."

Any person who is 23, has been a citizen of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic for the last five years, permanently resided in the Republic for the last five years, and has the right of suffrage, may be elected as a Nagorno Karabakh Republic National Assembly Deputy. Polish legislation give the right to be elected as a member of lower house  to an individual at the age of 21, while as an individual at the age of 30 can be elected as a member in upper house.

The deputies in the Polish Sejm are elected by proportional electoral system; while in the Senate majoritarian electoral system works. However proportional electoral system has a peculiarity in Poland: voters vote not only for a party, but also for a particular candidate in the list. As a result, party that manages to pass the threshold of 5 % (in case of coalition 8 %) is presented in the Sejm by the party members who got the most votes

This year 33 deputies of the NKR National Assembly will be elected by proportional electoral system, while 11 by majoritarian electoral system. It should be noticed that the number of deputies who are elected by proportional electoral system has increased.

The NKR electoral code defines the participation of proxies, observers including international ones as well as media representatives in the elections. The right of acting as an  observer can undertake representatives of international organizations, foreign states and  those NKR and foreign organizations whose constitutions include the articles on democracy and protection of human rights as well as those who do not support any candidates, parties or alliances of parties. International organizations, representatives of foreign states and foreign social organizations can undertake the role of observers in case they have invitation for doing that. The citizens of NKR cannot be included in the delegation of International organizations, representatives of foreign states and foreign social organizations. The invitation to conduct an observer mission can be issued by President of NKR, President of National Assembly, Prime Minister, and Central Electoral Commission. The reports presented by international observers are posted on the official website of Central Electoral Commission.

The following report was presented by the international observers on the NKR NA May 23, 2010 elections.

"The organization, realization and results of the NKR National Assembly election were in accordance to the NKR Electoral Code adapted on December 8, 2004 (changes in 2007, 2009, 2010) . The elections NKR National Assembly 33 Deputies were organized in proportional (17 places) and majoritarian (16 places) electoral systems. 4 parties participated in elections (all of them were registered in NKR CEC). In majoritarian electoral systems 40 candidates were presented in 19 constituencies of which 18 represented a party while the appointment of 7 candidates was an initiative from civil society."

As a shortcoming can be considered the fact that digitalization of the list of voters was not finalized. Because of this the names of separate individuals were left out from the lists and they had to waste additional time to get necessary references from the Police Office and have an opportunity to vote.

The election passed in a calm atmosphere, there were no recorded essential violations neither in the process of voter registration nor in voting process, nor in the process of vote counting, nor in the process of transferring votes from local to central electoral commissions. The level of voters' activity was reported in every three hours throughout the whole day. The overall number of voters was 67.461.

The voters we have met expressed no complaints on the organization and coverage of the elections. In general, NKR National Assembly elections were organized in accordance with the standards of transparency, justice and democracy and can be estimated as a progress in the process of NKR democracy development.

As it becomes obvious both on legislative level and on the level of election organization NKR does not lack behind even the long time established and popular democracies in terms of preserving democratic norms.  As for overcoming existing shortcoming as well as reinforcing democratic values the NKR is in need of international assistance, which can be realized by the presence of international representatives in the upcoming elections and by presenting their own estimates on the issue. As it was recently stated by NKR Foreign Minister Karen Mirzoyan the invitation to act as an observer in NKR election was sent to 60 international organizations and individuals.  What is left for them is to contribute to the development and reinforcement of another democracy in the South Caucasus.