"WE ARE NOT BORN YESTERDAY": OSCE/ODIHR OBSERVER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000662 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/21/2017 TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM OSCE AM SUBJECT: "WE ARE NOT BORN YESTERDAY": OSCE/ODIHR OBSERVER LEADERSHIP PRIVATELY MORE NEGATIVE ON ARMENIAN ELECTIONS THAN PUBLIC STATEMENTS SUGGEST YEREVAN 00000662 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: CDA A.F. Godfrey, reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission (EOM) chief of mission, Ambassador Frlec, and deputy COM, Ian Gorvin, were markedly more sour on Armenia's May 12 election in a dinner at CDA's residence, and less-markedly so in the semi-public forum of their last OSCE member state chiefs of mission briefing. The EOM had identified serious procedural problems in the vote counts and results reporting, but these had gotten scant attention. More broadly, the two men felt that Armenia had studied the ODIHR methodology and successfully performed to the test, while perhaps evading the spirit of fully free elections. They groused that their partner entitites had over-enthused during the May 12 conference, while ODIHR's carefully constructed reservations were almost wholly overlooked. Frlec told us that the EOM's concerns about the yet-unfolding vote counting process had led to their decision to issue an upcoming fourth interim report. END SUMMARY ¶2. (C) CDA hosted a private dinner May 16 with Frlec, Gorvin, and German/EU Presidency Ambassador Heike Peitsch, accompanied on the American side by polchief, and incoming USAID Mission Director. On May 18, Frlec presided over a final in-country briefing for chiefs of mission of OSCE member states, in which he conveyed similar points, more cautiously articulated. ¶3. (C) Frlec and Gorven were frustrated that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE),and European Parliament representatives who spoke at the May 13 joint press conference had been so unreservedly positive in their assessment of Armenia's May 12 election. These assessments were based almost entirely, in Frlec's view, on the various parliamentarians' daytime observations of polling places on election day. Few, if any, of the parliamentary observers had watched closing and counting procedures at any polling place, and they were likewise almost completely ignorant of the workings of the territorial election commissions (TECs) or the Central Election Commission. ¶4. (C) The parliamentarians also lacked the statistical rigor of ODIHR's methodology, which drew on some 1,800 short-term observer observation reports. Yet, to Frlec's irritation, it was the parliamentarians' that drew all the media ink. Further, leaders in major European capitals had quickly fallen all over themselves in congratulating Armenia on its fine elections. At the May 18 briefing, Frlec commented that only the American statements, in Yerevan and from the State Deaprtment in Washington, had been appropriately nuanced. ¶5. (C) The ODIHR EOM's "TEC teams" had found the TECs' operation, overall, considerably more chaotic than the polling places. The TECs had been involved in significant corrections to precinct protocols, apparently because the precinct staff in many places were thoroughly confused by the intricate procedures required to fill in the protocols accurately. The protocols had, for example, included a number of mathematical formulas designed as double-checks to detect/prevent fraud, but these procedures had apparently flummoxed large numbers of precinct workers. This then required TEC members to make significant pen and ink corrections to protocols, many of which (even if innocently intended) had the effect of defeating security and accountability features. After election day, the EOM audited a sample of 200 precinct-level protocols, and in just these 200 found 96 errors. ¶6. (C) The ODIHR EOM experts already had initial concerns about the tabulation and reporting procedures by the time of the early-afternoon May 13 joint press conference, but Frlec's cautiously-worded reservations were almost completely overlooked. The EOM's reservations about vote counts and the reporting and documentation of those counts have only grown since May 13. Frlec and Gorvin noted that a number of TECs, especially in Yerevan, had been unaccountably slow to post their official results. More concerning still, throughout the week of May 13-18, the results posted to the CEC's official website had been in a mysterious state of almost constant flux. The EOM had taken to printing out the website's data tables every few hours so as to have a documentary record of the various changes and updates made with no explanation. ¶7. (C) With these discoveries, the EOM has decided to issue an unusual fourth interim report, prior to the final report to be produced by mid-July. The fourth interim report, which should be published any day, would be kept short and to the YEREVAN 00000662 002.2 OF 002 point, and would focus on these procedural concerns. We encouraged Frlec and Gorvin in their impulse to publish a fourth interim report to get these new observations and concerns on the record promptly, while there is still time for the GOAM to make mid-course corrections. ¶8. (C) More generally, Frlec and Gorvin told us frankly during our private dinner that they viewed Armenia's election as a successful "performance." Gorvin expressed disappointment, in fact, that no one had picked up on his insertion of the word "performance" in the May 13 statement. (COMMENT: This ploy was too clever by half, and Gorvin was foolish to expect outside observers to read this as a coded criticism. END COMMENT). Frlec and Gorvin had the distinct sense of influences and manipulations being brought to bear in ways that could not be captured by the EOM's methodology. They offered little to substantiate or even articulate with any specificity the basis for this feeling, but felt it strongly nonetheless. Frlec did not back away, however, from the overall assessment that the results generally reflected the will of the Armenian voters, when questioned by Amb. Peitsch during the COMs briefing. ¶9. (C) Frlec told us that he planned, during his final courtesy call/outbrief with Foreign Minister Oskanian, to offer an off-the-record personal comment that "we are not born yesterday." In other words, to signal that he and Gorvin were able to tell that all was not entirely right with the recent election, even though the EOM had not been able to document significant problems. ¶10. (C) COMMENT: Frlec and Gorvin clearly -- as they admitted -- felt under intense pressure and goverment scrutiny over the course of their time in Armenia. Gorvin told us, in fact, that as a seven-time veteran of ODIHR EOM cadres, he did not intend ever to take another ODIHR assignment. Frlec's and Gorvin's complaints about the international community's overly-positive reactions strike us as partly of their own making. The ODIHR team failed for whatever to speak up clearly with its reservations when it mattered, which was May 13. The team's reservations were too subtly expressed to be readily perceived, and were thus understandably overlooked by European leaders and international media. Nonetheless, we believe the EOM will be on target in issuing a more skeptical fourth interim report, and hope to use this fourth report to galvanize additional GOAM work to clean up a few of the messes discovered. GODFREY