OSCE/ODIHR POST-ELECTION INTERIM REPORT ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 000213 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EUR/CARC, NSC FOR MARIA GERMANO E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/11/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ASEC KDEM AM SUBJECT: OSCE/ODIHR POST-ELECTION INTERIM REPORT ON ARMENIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEREVAN 00000213 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Joseph Pennington, reasons 1.4 (b/d). -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (SBU) OSCE/ODIHR released another interim report on Armenia's February 19 election on March 7. Cloaked in bland ODIHR language, the report documents some serious problems that have come to light since the February 20 Preliminary Statement. Characteristically, some of the most provocative findings are buried near the end of the nine-page document and in the footnotes. For example, nine out of 41 Territorial Election Commissions (TECs) disallowed recount requests, citing dubious technicalities. Many recounts completed showed significant discrepancies and evidence of fraud. The interim report noted anomalies in the number of spoiled ballots (35,798 total, or two percent of ballots cast). Meanwhile, the total number of votes officially recorded exceeded by 1,349 the number of ballot papers recorded as having been issued to voters. The report also cited "implausibly high turnout" at precincts across ten TECs, and these high turnout figures often correlated with higher numbers for Serzh Sargsian. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) The full interim report is available at http://www.osce. org/documents/odihr/2008/03/30090 en.pdf. -------------- ELECTION DISCREPANCY AND PROTEST -------------- ¶3. (SBU) In its initial report, OSCE/ODIHR concluded that the February 19 election "was administered mostly in line with OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards." While this was a relatively mediocre mark, the GOAM presented this finding as confirmation of a well-run and fair election. Many western news outlets also reported it as such, while noting almost as an aside that some irregularities had been found. (NOTE: ODIHR staff told us privately that "mostly in line" should be understood as less positive than the "largely in line" description Armenia received in May. Moreover, the word "administered" in that sentence was also intended by ODIHR to signal a more narrow application of praise only to election day procedures, but this subtlety also escaped local understanding. END NOTE.) ¶4. (SBU) Several candidates filed requests for recounts, which found some discrepancies but didn't prevent the Central Election Commission (CEC) from certifying the election results on February 24. The CEC declared Serzh Sargsian the winner, with 52.8 percent of the vote, more than the 50 percent needed to avoid a second-round runoff. ¶5. (U) The ODIHR report, however, notes that recounts revealed discrepancies and mistakes in the original count large enough to raise questions over the political impartiality of PECs and TECs. Election-day violations ranged from simple fraud to violence and intimidation. Post-election-day violations included unsecured, unscrutinized, lost, and tampered ballots, as well as intentional miscounts. ¶6. (U) Among some of ODIHR's more notable findings are the following: - Observers assessed the vote count as "bad" or "very bad" at 17 of the 111 (about 16 percent) polling stations whose counting procedures were directly observed; Some observers reported "significant procedural errors" in the vote count, such as not showing marked ballots to all present, signing protocols before completion of the count or signing blank protocols; indications of ballot-box stuffing and attempts to impede observers in their activity; - Some observers reported that Provincial Electoral Commission (PEC) chairs constantly received phone calls with requests to report the results, specifically the vote percentage for Serzh Sargsian; -------------- SERZH IS REALLY STRONG IN GORIS! -------------- YEREVAN 00000213 002.2 OF 003 ¶7. (SBU) The report found implausibly high voter turnouts at a number of polling stations, in some cases exceeding 100 percent. (Note: The GOAM responded to this particular finding by saying that these high turnouts occurred in precincts where members of the military voted, even if not registered at those precincts. End Note). Among other curiosities identified by ODIHR were: - In general, Sargsian received disproportionately high vote percentages in PECs with high turnouts. In several precincts in the Goris area (his home region),he received 99 percent of the vote, with voter turnouts of 97 to 99.5 percent. The ODIHR report goes on to state "An analysis of official results by the OSCE/ODIHR EOM indicates that PECs (precincts) which reported a higher than average voter participation also had a higher share of votes for Serzh Sargsyan (sic)." - At several polling stations, observers noted ballots marked for Levon Ter-Petrossian were counted as for Serzh Sargsian. - There was a wide variation in the number of invalid ballots, ranging from 0.88 percent to a high of 28 percent in one PEC. (NOTE: We have heard reports of PEC members deliberately invalidating LTP ballots during the count by adding extraneous marks or multiple votes to the ballot paper. CDA personally observed a recount for one precinct in which 35 votes clearly intended for LTP were invalidated by identical stray marks on the ballots. The number of invalidated ballots for all other candidates combined at that precinct was less than 5. END NOTE.) - In some instances more ballots were found in the ballot box than were issued to voters. In one PEC, the number of votes was 80 more than the number of ballots officially issued. Conversely, in some other polling stations, the number of ballots in the ballot box was somewhat lower (in one case as many as 61) than the number issued. -------------- CAN'T COUNT ON THE RECOUNTS -------------- ¶8. (SBU) In the recount process, requests were filed for recounts in 25 Territorial Electoral Commissions (TECs) for 159 polling stations. The TECs rejected a number of recount requests either on the grounds that the request was baseless (without even considering them). While the legislation governing recounts allows TECs to extend their working hours, the ODIHR observers did not learn of any TEC having worked extra hours in order to complete its work. When the recount period ended, 24 PECs had not yet been recounted. The ODIHR report also strongly implies, without quite saying, that a stalking horse presidential candidate flooded the system early on with frivolous recount requests, which by first-come/first-served recount rules were adjudicated first, leaving insufficient time for recounting more problematic precincts. ¶9. (SBU) Violence, intimidation and other manipulations occurred in the recount process as well as in the election, in nearly all cases in ways that prevented recounting of ballots marked for Levon Ter-Petrossian and retained votes for Serzh Sargsian. The report detailed a particularly egregious incident, also directly observed by CDA, in which a swarm of thugs invaded TEC 5 during the recount process to prevent votes from being recounted and forced commission members, journalists, ODIHR observer and CDA to exit the building, while police officers stood idly by. Authorities chose to charge with a crime an opposition party representative from the Central Election Commission who defied these goons to start opening a package of ballots. No charges have been filed against the thugs. -------------- APPEALS RUNAROUND -------------- ¶10. (SBU) The report notes there were few formal complaints registered on election day. It cites an LTP representative's claim that LTP's proxies had attempted to file more, but encountered obstruction from PECs. The LTP representative produced 103 unregistered/unrecorded complaint protocols and stated that he attempted to submit a further 122 that the CEC refused to accept on Saturday, February 23, citing it as a YEREVAN 00000213 003.2 OF 003 non-working day. Some observers reported instances where a PEC refused to record complaints in the journals or to receive and official complaint. (NOTE: CDA and a number of credible Embassy/USAID grantees independently witnessed individuals who were intimidated or physically prevented from recording complaints into PECs' evidentiary records -- a key step required for initiating certain types of complaint. END NOTE) ¶11. (U) The CEC received 19 post-election complaints which they refused to hear in open session, issuing only text decisions. The report from ODIHR states plainly that "the CEC's handling of complaints and appeals did not provide complainants with (an) effective remedy nor did it enhance public confidence in the impartiality of the election administration." -------------- WATCHING OUT FOR THE OBSERVERS? -------------- ¶12. (C) An ODIHR mission staffer privately confided to us that the mission detected a pattern throughout election day of apparent "watchers" being posted outside some polling places. As ODIHR observers approached in their OSCE-marked cars, the watcher would duck inside, and in moments a small crowd of unidentified persons would scatter from within and nearby the polling place, leaving a seemingly pristine process inside for the observers to document on their checklists. A USG employee seconded to the ODIHR mission reported a similar impression from about half the precincts he observed. The ODIHR methodology offers no way to document this suspected, but difficult to confirm, problem. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶13. (C) The ODIHR report highlights an extensive array of various types of electoral violations in almost every phase of the process. However, while documenting a number of serious problems, and presenting other elements that suggest a distinctly malodorous air to the overall proceeding, the ODIHR report does not produce documented evidence of problems in enough precincts to add up to a high enough number of bad votes to categorically cast doubt on Serzh Sargsian's 45,000 vote margin of victory. ODIHR observer teams were present in only 111 (less than 10 percent) of the more than 1,900 polling places during the critical vote tabulation phase -- not least because authorities had so aggressively limited the maximum size of the ODIHR mission, setting a cap of 250 observers, and incidentally also arranged to exclude any U.S. Embassy employees from the ODIHR mission. ODIHR staffers have also intimated that the phrase "mostly in line" with international commitments will almost certainly be downgraded in the final report, expected in May. There is, however, no smoking gun here. PENNINGTON