The Central Election Commission (CEC) has reported a 29.36 percent voter turnout (as of 2.00 pm) in the ongoing City Council elections in Yerevan.

CEC spokesperson Tatevik Ohanyan told ArmeniaNow the turnout (Yerevan officially has 771,477 eligible voters) is similar to that during the 2008 presidential election.

(Yerevan’s northern district of Avan, where the Republican ticket’s number two Taron Margaryan is current prefect, recorded the highest turnout of all districts – 37.65 percent.)

Meanwhile, a leading corruption monitoring group – Transparency International – has insinuated that voters have been bussed from Gyumri to participate in the Yerevan City Council election today.
As reported on caucasusreports blog (http://caucasusreports.wordpress.com), TI observer Levon Barseghyan said he saw 20 minibuses parked in front of the mayor’s office. He also said a Gyumri Deputy Mayor told a Gyumri-based Radio Free Liberty reporter that the group was going to a BBQ.

Barseghyan followed the convoy, which he says received a police escort, which broke off in different directions upon reaching Yerevan.

Barseghyan said he couldn’t confirm whether the buses actually went to polling stations, but he recorded their license plates and reported them to the Human Rights in Armenia voter hotline.

Meanwhile, the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) has claimed that the number of registered violations in the current elections is as great as during the previous elections. The ANC registered 32 cases of violations since the early morning till noon.

“The same violence and terror are used against proxies; the governing parties took to all resources to make falsifications,” the ANC spokesman Arman Musinyan told ArmeniaNow.

According to the ANC data, a group of “electorate” was brought from Gyumri, Maralik (Shirak Province), and Vanadzor (Lori Province) to Yerevan by mini buses. As the opposition states, the mini busses stopped at the building of the Football Federation of Armenia, people got off there and received the necessary registration forms, and then were taken to different polling stations to vote.

“This means that with the help of those people who are registered in different provinces of Armenia and live there, the fortune of Yerevan will be decided,” Musinyan said.

Meanwhile, Civil Society Institute has registered 25 violations.

MP and spokesman for the Republican Party of Armenia, Eduard Sharmazanov, brushed aside the opposition claims as “baseless”.

“It is not excluded that there are people who are registered in Yerevan, however, they happened to be in Gyumri during these days, and they return to the capital to vote. The Republican Party has neither the wish nor ability to make falsifications. This is simply the same ‘handwriting’ of making noise,” Sharmazanov told ArmeniaNow.

According to the ANC, a tense situation is created in the Malatia-Sebastia district, which, according to Musinyan, is under the control of MP oligarch Samvel Alexanyan. Here mainly violation was committed against proxies.

Vardan Vardanyan, chairman of the 8/02 Malatia-Sebastia Commission in the Malatia-Sebastia district, first reportedly hindered the works of ANC proxy Arman Abrahamyan, and then beat him. In another – 7/08 polling station the representative of the Heritage Party and the ANC proxy in the commission were beaten and removed from the polling station.

However, Abrahamyan avoided giving any comments and simply told ArmeniaNow that everything is normal and that nothing had happened.

An observer from ‘It’s Your Choice’ Organization confirmed that a brawl took place in the above- mentioned polling station. “May be they simply threatened Arman Abrahamyan and made him keep silent. He is a human being, he fears for his life,” the observer, who did not wish her full identity to be revealed, told ArmeniaNow.

In contrast to numerous reports about violations coming from the opposition camp, Prosperous Armenia and Orinats Yerkir have so far reported no major violations.

Prosperous Armenia’s top candidate in the current elections, Harutyun Kushkyan, shared his optimism about a “clean election” with the media as he cast his ballot in the vote.

“I am sure the elections will be a step forward,” Kushkyan was quoted as saying.

Another contestant, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), reported several attempts of violations, which it said were stopped by the party’s representatives.

Meanwhile, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan, who is the leader of the ruling Republican Party and Armenia’s first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who leads the ANC in the current elections, voted at the same polling station in central Yerevan at a two-hour interval.

Sargsyan refused to make comments to the press, saying that “today is the day of silence”, while Ter-Petrosyan said he will “answer all questions tomorrow”.